Daily Times

LAHORE: SAARC Chamber of Commerce and Industry Senior Vice President (SVP) and United Business Group (UBG) central chairman Iftikhar Ali Malik Saturday felicitated Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan for assuming portfolio of Prime Minister and his induction will usher in an era of economic prosperity and bring the country on right track.

In a statement issued here today, Iftikhar Ali Malik said all developed countries follow guidelines by the business community for launching economic and business policies and hoped the PTI government would also adopt a rational and pragmatic approach in this regard.

He said that industry in the country was facing energy crisis, adding the newly elected party should take steps for ensuring uninterrupted supply of electricity and gas for sustainable economic growth. He also PTI government would protect fiscal and monetary policies by giving a legislation cover.

He said Pakistan’s public debt remained high and on the other hand, the perception of corruption was hurting its prospects to grow. He said Pakistan ranked at 117th out of a total of 180 nations worldwide based on the level of perceived public sector corruption and country is making little or no progress towards tackling the menace of financial misconduct. He said PTI should prioritize war against corruption and take stern actions against those involved in mega scandal without any discrimination. He said people are expecting so much from the PTI government and Imran Khan would not disappoint the nation in this regard.

Unfortunately, for wrong policies of the previous government, Pakistan is fast heading towards another bailout package to meet the grave situation of current account deficits. Defaulting to foreign loans will be more destructive for the country. “This is why I suggest the government extend the existing amnesty scheme and provide more facilities to oversee Pakistanis convincing them to transfer assets to Pakistan.

He said Pakistan is on grey list and the country has the grace period of 12 to 15 months to come out of the list. “What Pakistan needed was to perform better diplomacy and convince at least five to seven countries and get favourable votes out of the total 37 countries before the next meeting of FATF.

Iftikhar Ali Malik has also expressed hope that Imran would take measures to boost Pak-India trade and bilateral relations. He said Pakistan should “think strategically, not emotionally, on trade issues” and create competition on items being imported from other countries, especially from China.

He said bilateral trade is diminishing, he said that in Pakistan’s case the scenario is worse as its imports are increasing more than exports and recently, the country has started importing items that had never been imported before. “India’s exports to Pakistan have reduced 19 per cent, whereas Pakistani exports to India have also witnessed a cut of 9 per cent this year,” said Iftikhar.

Removing barriers in Pak-India trade will not boost growth rate immediately. It will have a modest impact on the economy. In some years, our GDP level would be higher,” he concluded.

Published in Daily Times, August 19^th 2018.