Chairman Site Association of Industry (SAI), Abdul Wahab Lakhani has lauded press statements issued by the Ministries of Textiles and Petroleum in which they have called gas cross subsidy as "poison", resulting in all consumers; power, industrial, CNG and commercial sectors being over burdened. This is a realistic statement.
The negative impact of cross subsidy is passed on to the industrial sector including textile sector, which highly raises the production cost due to no fault of the industry and makes our products uncompetitive in the world markets against our regional competitors China, Bangladesh and India. "Our Association is against the policy of rob the Peter to pay Paul", said Lakhani. The industrial sector is already passing through a tough time caused by load shedding by KESC and gas curtailment by the SSGC, and the cross subsidies to fertiliser and domestic consumers of more than Rs 30 billion, at the cost of the industry shall prove counter productive and shall result in falling exports and loss of our hard earned international markets.
Lakhani supported the Mintex suggestion "that the cross subsidisation should be addressed in a rational and prudent manner, otherwise the subsidy amount would keep ballooning and would totally suffocate the industrial sector", and hoped that the government would give due consideration to these recommendations.-PR