Government urged to safeguard local investments

The Pakistan Industrial and Traders Association Front (PIAF) has urged the government to take urgent and immediate measures to safeguard local investments rather than attaching high hopes to foreign investment. Due to deteriorating law and order situation in the country and economic meltdown at global level it has become very difficult for the local businessmen to run their businesses.
The government would have to announce a special package of incentives for both the trade and industry in the forthcoming budget, said PIAF Chairman, Irfan Qaiser Sheikh in a statement here on Friday.
He said the government should chalk out a long-term strategy for the benefit of the common man by curtailing its expenditures and by creating new job opportunities. The law and order situation is the major impediment in the way of local and foreign investment and for this both the public and private sectors would have to play their role while the law enforcement agencies would be reactivated and revamped to improve the efficacy and efficiency, he added.
The Swat operation should be completed as early as possible as no country could survive being in a state of war for a long time. He appealed to the government to help to bring down the interest rates as existing rates are not only discouraging for investment but also making Pakistani merchandise uncompetitive in the global market. He said that unavailability of cheaper liquidity to corporate sector was also creating multiple other problems including high rate of unemployment. "Had the government been able to bring down mark-up rates a few years ago, the economic situation would have been quite encouraging today" he added.
The PIAF chairman also urged the government not to withdraw subsidy on electricity, gas and petroleum products, as the withdrawal would bring new wave of price-hike thus earning a bad name for the government.
Pakistan's foreign debts have crossed the mark of $50 billion and the internal debts have reached to Rs 37.5 trillions while economy has also faced loss of more than $37 billion. The government should not accept the IMF all conditions otherwise economic crisis would get more dire. He, however, lauded the decision to bring the real estate, services and agriculture sectors into tax net and urged the government to decrease the tax rates.