The Lahore Chamber of Commerce and Industry has said that the government should take the private sector on board if it is really interested in jobs creation and power generation. LCCI President Irfan Qaiser Sheikh said here on Monday that lack of skilled human resource, energy deficit, high cost of doing business, government policy of heavy borrowing and non-availability of cheaper money to the businessmen had badly affected the industrialisation process in the country.
The LCCI President said that job creation was only possible through expansion in economic activities that had come to a grinding halt due to gas and electricity shortages. Sheikh said that the government would have to strengthen the private sector to achieve its economic goals and continuous supply of cheaper energy and a cut in interest rate are prerequisite to it.
The LCCI President said that the business community was unable to understand the logic behind highest ever interest rates while the same could be curtailed by bringing down the banking spread. He said Lahore is the second largest industrial city of the country after Karachi but the energy situation here is very bad that is leading to industrial closures and massive lay-offs what to talk of provision of jobs to new graduates.
Sheikh said that the country's reliance on costly thermal power was jacking up the cost of production and import bill. The country needed an urgent shift in its energy-mix in favour of hydle power and local fuels, he said, adding that the 175 billion tons of Thar coal reserves with a price tag of $13 trillion in the international market are enough to provide 100,000 MW of electricity for 100 years.
Uninterrupted and affordable power supplies can turn Pakistan into an economic powerhouse, he added. The LCCI President also hoped that the government would earmark funds for the early completion of Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline and LNG terminals to keep the industrial wheel running especially in Punjab that has borne the brunt of recent suspension of gas supplies to industry in the country.
Rising risk perception about investing into Pakistan was hitting hard the Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) that fell sharply in recent months and needs to be tackled through a comprehensive policy approach by involving Chambers of Commerce in the country. Sheikh said that all the developed countries accorded special importance to economic issues and the challenges. But in Pakistan the situation is the other way round and the economy is on the bottom of government's to-do list.
The LCCI President said that a number of sectors in Pakistan including infrastructure development, coal, energy, agriculture, livestock, textiles and pharmaceutical offer lucrative investment opportunities to foreign investors but unfortunately due to absence required funding for a proper and well tailored marketing strategy these opportunities were unattended even today. The LCCI President also suggested that the Sales tax slab should immediately be curtailed to 10 per cent from existing 16 percent in order to reduce inflationary pressures.