MCCI President Malik Asrar Ahmed Awan said that announcing mini-budget in almost quarter of the financial year shows lack of planning on the part of the policy-makers because such unexpected measures create problems for business activities and put more burdens on the general public. He said regulatory duty has been increased up to 50 percent on many eatable items including fruits and vegetables that would put extra burden on the common man apart from affecting business activities.The MCCI chief stressed that the government should review hike in RD, especially on eatable items. He said that the government should not enhance RD on imported items that were being used as raw material/inputs for manufacturing of local products as hike in RD on such items would cause further dip in exports.
MCCI Chief said that instead of enhancing RD on imports to curb trade deficit, the government should focus on addressing the key issues of exporters to facilitate the growth of exports. He said, “Our exports have declined by almost 20 percent since 2013-14, after attaining the peak level of $25 billion, but the government remained inactive to arrest the declining trend in exports. He said Pakistan mostly depended on textiles for exports while exports of other items including agriculture and SMEs have taken a big hit during the last many years. It showed that no tangible efforts were made to broaden and diversify the export base due to which our imports have gone up and exports have come down.”
The MCCI president stressed that government should reduce taxes on manufacturing inputs, take strong measures to ensure easy availability of credit to the private sector from commercial banks and address key issues of SMEs that would help in promoting exports and reducing trade deficit.
