Gas price hike of around 17 percent from January next by Sui Southern Gas Company (SSGC) would cause severe hardship to export-oriented and value-added textile industry operating in Sindh particularly small and medium industrial units of Karachi.
This was stated by North Karachi Association of Trade and Industry (NKATI) patron-in-chief A Moiz Khan and Chairman Dawood Usman Jakhura in a joint statement released here on Tuesday.
They observed that turning gas, which was an essential indigenous utility, into a most expensive utility would hit hard the exporting industry and also cause adverse effects on other industries.
The new price of gas evidently reflects that the industry in Sindh will pay substantially more than the industry in Punjab which is a glaring discriminative move, they said, adding that gas tariffs of both Sui Southern and Sui Northern for industry were poles apart.
NKATI office-bearers further said continuous raise in rates of gas and other utilities had increased production cost of exportable goods which would ultimately render the country's exporting industry inefficient. Simultaneously, it will adversely affect export graph, which would descend, they added.
They termed exemption of fertiliser industry from increase in gas rates as unjustified, saying non-exemption of textile industry in Sindh from gas price increase was biased treatment.
They urged President and Prime Minister to include reputed representatives of business and industry of Sindh in corporate structure of Oil and gas Regulatory Authority (Ogra) to scan the trend of increasing prices in keeping with national interest.
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