The rising inflation in the country has reached to a level where it has not only targeted the poor, but all segments of the economy like a termite, impacting the common people, business community, investors, currency, foreign investors, and depositors with the same ruthlessness.
This was observed by President of Islamabad Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ICCI) Ijaz Abbasi here on Friday. "Traders are complaining about slow turn out of customers for Eid shopping as over 25 percent high inflation has depleted their purchasing power sufficiently, which is putting negative impact on business activities in the country," he said.
"When inflation crosses reasonable limits, it puts negative effects on consumers, businesses and the economy because it reduces the value of money, resulting in uncertainty of the value of gains and losses of buyers, sellers, borrowers and lenders", he said.
Increasing uncertainty also discouraged savings and investment, he said, adding that the government should take urgent remedial measures to arrest the rising trend of inflation as well as downward slide of our rupee to ease the pressure on the economy. Rising electricity, gas, fuel prices and elimination of subsidies had made conditions tougher for people, squeezing their purchasing capacity, he added.
Abbasi said incomes of foreign investors had also gone down as inflation had reduced the value of rupee by over 20 percent in the last four months. Earlier, foreign investors were repatriating their income at the rate of Rs 60 a dollar, now they had to pay more than Rs 78 for one dollar, he remarked.
The ICCI President said the country was experiencing power shortage of about 1500 MW and it would further put negative impact on business and industry, adding that people were sick of prolonged load-shedding. Therefore, he stressed the need for exploring all possible ways to cop with energy crisis so the economy could not go down further due to energy shortage.
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