(August-21-2023)
Chairman of National Business Group Pakistan, President Pakistan Businessmen and Intellectuals Forum, and All Karachi Industrial Alliance, and former provincial minister Mian Zahid Hussain said on Monday that the power sector is sinking the faltering economy.
The current electricity tariff is killing agriculture, production, and exports while bankrupting the people, he said.
Mian Zahid Hussain said that if the electricity tariff is not reduced immediately, the economy will go down at an unprecedented pace.
Talking to the business community, the veteran business leader said that the electricity sector has become a big problem for the people and the business community.
Reforms and reduced production costs have become necessary for the electricity industry. He said, adding that the price of gas and fuel is continuously increasing while the interest rate is also at a record level, due to which local exporters are not able to compete in the international market and rival countries are replacing them.
Mian Zahid Hussain said that until the price of electricity, gas, and interest rates are reduced, there is no possibility of increasing production and exports.
The business leader said that the exchange rate is going out of control due to which inflation is increasing again, and the fiscal deficit and current account deficit are also snowballing due to which the value of the currency is depreciating rapidly.
Remittances are also coming down significantly and have decreased by seven percent in July, due to which the deficit is increasing, he added.
He said that now people are hoarding dollars again as it is widely believed that the local currency will depreciate further, and in these circumstances, economic stability will prove to be a challenge for the current caretaker government.
Mian Zahid Hussain further said that the current account deficit reached eight hundred million dollars in the month of July after being in surplus for four months, which is difficult to control because the government has promised IMF to lift the ban on imports.
As a result, after a 30 percent increase in imports in July, they have reached five billion dollars.
