Industrialists and business leaders have expressed their dismay over Sunday's increase in the POL prices and said this would accelerate inflation in the country. Talking to Business Recorder, Vice President SAARC chamber Iftikhar Ali Malik said though the government had to pass on the increase in international prices of petroleum products to the domestic consumers, yet its overall effects would be very adverse on the economy and social life of country.
"Instead of one go, the government should have gradually increased the oil prices so that its impact would not have been as severe as it will now be," he added. Criticising the increase in oil prices, President Pakistan Tanners Association (PTA) Khurshid Alam said that Pakistan industrial sector had already been paralysed by the prolonged gas and electricity load shedding. "Our export of leather products, hide and skin had declined from $1.2 billion to about $800 million in a couple of years,"he added.
Alam said that PTA had made petitions to the President and the Prime Minister to ban export and check smuggling of live animals to Iran and Afghanistan, as Pakistan's tannery industry faces shortage of skins and hides. He said PTA members have almost finished their export stocks and are not accepting any new export orders. The increase in POL has further burdened the crippled leather industry, which is next to the textile industry in export earnings.