Daily Times

The Ferozepur Road Industrial Association (FRIA) has asked the government to establish long-term and sustainable policies in consultation with the real stakeholders to enhance production growth. Presently, the high cost of doing business has proved to be dangerous for the industry, as the ever-increasing energy, gas and power tariffs are the real threat to the economy amidst high markup rate and continuous fluctuations exchange rate. This was stated in a meeting organized by FRIA with its chairman Shahbaz Aslam in the chair. The participants of the meeting asked the government to take prompt measures to bring down the production costs for the export industry to enable them to compete in the international market. The FRIA Chairman said that the industry is currently having difficulty to compete the global market because of rapid increase in production costs. He said that the high cost of production is not good for our exports.

Shahbaz Aslam said that high energy tariffs, growing rates of taxes, and lack of skilled labor are the main reasons behind the increase in the cost of production. Manufacturing and production industries have the potential to significantly impact economic growth by reducing unemployment in the country.

“We are the biggest employment generators as our sector has an immense potential to create jobs with comparatively low investment and less energy needs, as it generates employment at low energy consumption compared to other sectors.”

The chairman said that Pakistan’s industry is struggling in the international market due to challenges such as high inflation, political instability, increased power tariff, rising fuel costs, energy shortages, and lack of R&D.

An effective strategy is needed to improve the performance of the industrial sector. The government should facilitate exporters by providing a level playing field to them in terms of business costs, particularly in utility pricing, he suggested. He said Pakistan’s economy, particularly small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), is struggling to cope with the current economic crunch, and needs support. Rather than providing subsidies or waivers, the industries are being burdened through rising production cost. The burden of surging oil prices in the international market is immediately transferred to consumers by the government, but the process of reducing prices is always very slow, he noted.

He asked the government to work on a fast track plan to address expansive energy issue and priority should be given to the value-added textile industry in this regard.

The chairman urged for increasing ease of doing business, lowering cost of production, paying early refunds to solve liquidity crunch, relaxing import policy for industrial raw material, and equalizing the energy tariff across the country.