'Need for industrial revolution': government must change priorities: MCCI chief

Multan Chamber of Commerce and Industry (MCCI) President Anis Ahmed Sheikh said the government would have to change its priorities to spark industrial revolution. He said the issue of poverty would never be resolved through petty dole outs to the poor.
"Rapid job creation is the only solution to reducing poverty. Industries should be given preference in supply of power and energy. "He said difficulties of the people continued to rise due to declining productivity. The government, he added, would have to muster political will to divert all populist funds it created to meaningful education and infrastructure projects.
Multan Chamber's president said foreign donors would not continue pampering Pakistan forever if the rulers failed to turn the economy into a vibrant one. He said foreign inflows might continue for another two or three years after which "we should expect a squeeze". The government, he added, should utilise this period to improve productivity.
Businessmen are seeing some light at the end of the tunnel as economic indicators improve, but they link any economic turnaround to rapid industrialisation, which will create exportable surplus amid prudent use of the foreign inflows coming into Pakistan.

They say Pakistan needs rapid industrialisation to make a mark in global markets. The accelerated growth achieved during the period 1999-2007 was achieved without the launch of green industrial projects. However, the high growth did enable most of the industries to utilise their idle production capacities.
Some industries went for balancing and modernising of their units but new industrial projects during this period could be counted on fingers. They said that export was more than doubled by the year 2006 due to utilisation of all idle capacities. However, after that the exports stagnated because the country simply did not have exportable surplus. Rapid industrialisation through government facilitations is the only way to ensuring a sustainable growth in exports.
Engineering entrepreneur Iqbal Hassan said though many industrial estates had been set up in the country but except for Sundar no meaningful progress could be seen in others. He said development work in large industrial estates in Karachi, Multan and Faisalabad was pathetically slow.
"It is a pity that scores of plots are lying unutilised in most of the existing industrial estates although non-construction of industry after two to three years should have resulted in their cancellation. "These plots are being used as property business.
"He regretted even at the Sundar Estate where unutilised plots were cancelled initially after expiry of construction deadline, property business of industrial plots was flourishing. Pakistan Hosiery Manufacturers Association former chairman Shahzad Azam Khan said besides increasing resources and infrastructure for industrial estates the government would have to ensure availability of credit to the industries at a reasonable mark-up. He said the cost of projects had gone up by over 30 percent in the last 15 months while the cost of financial services for green projects was unbearable.
He said the government should take austerity measures and refrain from obtaining loans from commercial banks, which squeezed liquidity out of the money market. He said banks are comfortable by providing risk-free credit to the government at Kibor plus 1.5 percent than risking their money to the private sector.