September 17, 2018 (MLN): President of Islamabad Chamber of Commerce & Industry, Sheikh Amir Waheed has called upon the government to review the Economic Coordination Committee’s decision to increase gas prices for domestic consumers from 10 percent to 143 percent, as it would prove incommodious for the local consumers.  

He believed that besides giving rise to inflation, enhanced gas tariff would further worsen the fiscal deficit of the economy as the price hike would dampen the country's exports.

He also called upon the government to ponder the idea of privatizing lossmaking Public Sector Enterprises, including Pakistan Steel Mills, PIA, gas and electricity enterprises, as they were straining the national exchequer. As per an assessment carried out by IMF, the accumulated losses of PSEs have exceeded Rs.1.2 trillion which was 4 percent of GDP.

He believed that handing over the management to the private sector and introduction of best business practices would turn these enterprises into profitmaking business entities.

He further pressed that the amount spent by government to bail out these PSEs could be spent on health, education and social development of people instead.

Senior Vice President M. Naveed Malik and Vice President ICCI Nisar Mirza stressed that the government should give serious thought to open the power sector for private investment as it would bring competition in the sector, enhance their efficiency and improve service delivery to the end users.

They reinforced this statement by asserting that privatization and deregulation of banking and telecom sectors have brought massive dividends to the economy as it improved their performance, created thousands of jobs and boosted tax revenue of the country.

Muhammad Naveed Malik Senior Vice President, Nisar Mirza Vice President ICCI, M. Ashfaq Chatha, Zahid Satti and others were present at the occasion that took place in Islamabad.

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