KARACHI: On behalf of entire leather sector of Pakistan, Chairman Pakistan Tanners Association (PTA) Hamid A Zahur has urged the prime minister to avoid further increase ingas prices, which could lead the cause to render our member exporters ultimately unable to compete in the international market.

While appreciating the reduction of 2% interest rate, Zahur opposed the recent recommendation by Ogra to further increase the gas prices by 8.71% for SNGC customers in the north and a huge increase of 25.78% for SSGC customers in the south region.

The chairman PTA has also emphasized that rather than increasing the gas prices to the already paying customers, especially the export oriented industrial consumers, the gas distribution companies should take necessary measures for reduction in theft and pilferage of gas within the country, which go as unaccounted for gas.

In addition to this, there is a lot of uncertainty in the industry with regards to disconnection of the Captive Power Plants from January 2025 that run on natural gas. Huge investments have been made in the previous year’s which will go to waste if captive power plants are no longer supplied the required gas to run these generators.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2024