Government urged to take steps to arrest rupee slide

Government needs to take urgent steps to seize further evaluation of Pak Rupee detrimental to the economy, contain inflation, common man will also badly hurt, said Mian Zahid Aslam, President Faisalabad Chamber of Commerce & Industry (FCCI) on Saturday.
He said that Rupee devaluation would multiply the cost of doing business, affecting the productivity of economy and competitiveness of exports, lowering the import-substitution process and hurting the trade and industrial activities in the country as import prices for machinery and industrial raw material will be increased. He said that import bill will further inflate due to Pakistan's higher reliance on imports, particularly the oil and petroleum products already surpassing $14 billion in the last year.
He said that our economy has now revival trend after a long slump in the past years as all sectors of economy were evidently showing negative growth in the last year. However, further fall in the value of Rupee if not controlled, will cause re-contraction in economic and industrial activities leading to reduced tax revenue for government and fiscal deficit target fixed for 2013-14 unachievable.
He said that present pace of the depreciation of the rupee will push up the inflation to go further high and a common man will hurt badly in these days of growing cost-push inflation. He said that the depreciation of the Pak Rupee will add in billions in rupee term to the volume of foreign debts of the country, which now stands at $65 billion of the country in rupee terms.
He said that remittances by overseas Pakistanis are getting pace as a greater support to the depleting foreign exchange reserves and balance of payments position of the country. Their remittance through banking channel will also affect the level and pace achieved uptil now. He said that the competitiveness of Pakistanis products might affect due to increase in import prices of industrial machinery and raw materials. He said that Pak Rupee parity viz dollar has already lowered to 60 per cent during the previous regime and the current slide will aggravate the situation further if the damaging effect is not contained. He urged the government to take immediate steps to control the sliding of Pak Rupee and bring stabilisation in exchange rate in the best interest of economy, businesses and common man.