The president of the Pakistan Businessmen and Intellectuals Forum (PBIF) and senior vice chairman of the Businessmen Panel of FPCCI, Mian Zahid Hussain, has said that political uncertainty has taken a toll on the Pakistan Stock Exchange, which saw steep fall. This has troubled the local and foreign investors but SECP should not intervene at this point.
The government should take steps to boost exports and pay attention to remittances to contain the situation, he demanded. He said that imperfections in the trade policy should be tackled on an urgent basis because the annual trade deficit has touched all time high level of 32.6 billion dollars. Imports have also touched the mark of 53 billion dollars, which has raised concerns about the sustainability of forex reserves, he said.
Mian Zahid Hussain said that the trade deficit was 20.44 billion dollars when the current government came to power but the situation has worsened, and this cals for urgent measures. He said that foreign debt has also crossed the mark of 74 billion dollars while Rs 1,400 billion have been allocated for debt servicing in the budget, which may prove insufficient. This amount also indicates increased reliance on loans, which is not good for the economy, he said.
He observed that the trade deficit for the outgoing year was 12 billion dollars over and above the projections, while exports fell to 20.44 billion dollars, against the target of 24.8 billion dollars, due to incompetence of export managers as they were busy in futile meetings and exhibitions for three years. Despite the GSP-Plus status, the exports remained only 6.7 percent of the GDP despite certain incentives which call for the total implementation of Rs 180 billion export package and immediate release of refunds.