Islamabad Chamber of Commerce & Industry (ICCI) President Sheikh Amir Waheed said that the Economic Coordination Committee has approved increase in gas prices for domestic consumers from 10 percent to 143 percent that would make the life of common man more miserable and called upon the government to review its decision to save people from further trouble. He was inaugurating a business outlet at Karachi Company, G-9 Markaz, Islamabad. ICCI Senior Vice President Muhammad Naveed Malik, ICCI Vice President Nisar Mirza, M Ashfaq Chatha, Zahid Satti and others were also present on the occasion. ICCI President Sheikh Amir Waheed said that increase in gas price will significantly enhance the cost of tandoori roti for the common man while it could give rise to inflation as well. He urged that the government should avoid taking measures that would put more burden on the common man. He further stressed that the government should not enhance gas tariff for industry. He said that Pakistan was facing rising fiscal deficit and one better option to reduce this deficit was to promote country’s exports. He was of the opinion that hiking gas tariff for industry would affect production activities and further reduce exports. Therefore, he emphasised that the government should focus on taking measures that should bring down the cost of doing business for industry. “It would give boost to exports, reduce inflation and decrease trade and fiscal deficit of the country,” he said. Sheikh Amir Waheed also called upon the government to consider privatising loss-making PSEs as these enterprises were proving to be a big drain on the national exchequer. He said that many PSEs including Pakistan Steel Mills, Pakistan International Airlines, gas and electricity enterprises were incurring huge losses. He said an assessment of the International Monetary Fund has shown that the accumulated losses of PSEs have exceeded Rs 1.2 trillion which was 4 percent of the Gross Domestic Product. He said that every year, the government was spending Rs 500 to Rs 600 billion to bail out these PSEs and keep them afloat while this amount could be spent on health, education and social development of people. ICCI SVP M Naveed Malik and ICCI VP Nisar Mirza said that privatisation and deregulation of banking and telecommunication sectors have brought plenty of dividends to the economy as it improved their performance and service delivery, created thousands of new jobs and improved tax revenue of the country. They said that deregulation of gas and electricity utilities would bring competition in the sector, enhance their efficiency and improve service delivery to the end consumers. Therefore, they stressed that the government should give serious consideration to open the power sector for private investment. Published in Daily Times, September 18th 2018.