Aamir Riaz Bhinder, Chairman Surgical Instrument Manufacturers Association of Pakistan (Simap) has said that surgical industry outrightly rejects new monetary policy and demanded that government should force the economic managers and governor State Bank to formulate policies on at least three years basis.
In consultation with the traders and industrialists and State Bank should provide refinance at three percent while commercial banks should provide finance from their own resources at maximum six percent to the exporters.
Expressing his comments to media men in his office on Friday, he assured the government that with the appropriate support, surgical exports could rise to 500 million dollars from 180 million dollars. He said due to such failed policies, status of the State Bank is at stake and the positive business oriented policies of the government can also be affected.
He further said that the governor State Bank has allocated 30 percent of the export refinancing to the commercial banks in the new monetary policy, which seems impractical and may put very negative impact on the exporters as the banks are already discouraging the exporters with regard to export refinance scheme.
Bhinder said that right now, commercial banks are mainly focusing on consumer financing, through which they are earning up to 40 percent mark-up. The chairman Simap appealed to the President and the Prime Minister to appoint such experts at key posts, who truly belong to this country and not the imported ones, who do not understand the ground realities of the country.
He said that due to unnecessary and unjustified freedom given to the commercial banks by the Central Bank these banks are earning 200 percent to 300 percent profits and the exports and exporters are suffering most heavily.
He quoted the example of India, where due to realistic and practical policies, prepared in consultation with the business community, the exports are touching 120 billion dollars mark. Whereas in Pakistan experiments on failed theories are conducted at the cost of business and economy.
Aamir Bhinder said that trade organisations are not consulted during the preparation of policies and neither their recommendations are included in the policies. The actual reasons behind our falling exports and dwindling economy are the policies prepared behind closed doors.
He said that the loan default or right-off ratio in Sialkot is the lowest and due to the ill policies of central bank and commercial banks, the export industry is worst affected. He further added that we are proud that exporters are playing the leading and most important role in earning foreign exchange for the country.
The chairman surgical association deplored the fact that in Pakistan such policies are prepared and implemented which are completely contrary to our requirements. The imported experts use Pakistan as a laboratory to perform tests and go back to their original jobs in international organisations, whereas the country is not in a position to bear such tests.
Our authorities and policy makers should get inspiration from Bangladesh, where an economic icon like Muhammad Younis prepared policies according to the needs of the country and got revolutionary results.
In India, the government is providing maximum facilities to the exporters. The Reserve Bank of India is providing export refinance at concessional rates and due to these supportive measures, Indian exports have crossed the 120 billion dollars mark and we have only yet, set the export target of 19 billion dollars.