PIAF outlines road map for economic revival

While giving a roadmap for the revival of economy for the year 2011, the Pakistan Industrial and Traders Associations Front (PIAF) Wednesday emphasised to utilise all available resources and motivate all segments of the society for turning the economy around.
The issues including power outages, repeated hikes in petroleum products, electricity rates, gas shortage, unprecedented increase in daily use items and bad governance would be taken up with the concerned government departments. The roadmap was given by the newly elected PIAF Chairman Sohail Lashari while addressing the PIAF Executive Committee meeting. The PIAF Vice Chairmen Nadar Kamal Osman and Junaid Iqbal Sheikh also spoke on the occasion and gave their point of view as to how the ongoing crisis like situation could be averted.
Lashari said that the Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani should intervene into the Ogra affairs and stop it from making any further increase in the petroleum prices as it would not only affect the government's credibility but would also break all previous records of inflation in the country.
To overcome the energy shortage, the newly elected PIAF Chairman said that government would have to adopt the alternate means of energy generation besides initiating work on the construction of water reservoirs including Kalabagh Dam. He said that the country is self-sufficient for power generation through solar means, therefore, the government should come up with a package of incentives so that maximum number of people could be able to use solar equipment.
He said that the power tariff registered an upward trend of 67 percent in 2010 while it was almost hundred percent in the last three years. Due to this single reason, Pakistani merchandise failed to get due appreciation at the international market and the neighbouring countries made huge gains as the rate of electricity for the industry in Bangladesh was 9.5 cents, in India it was 9 cents against a rate of 13 cents in Pakistan.
He said that the entire trade and industry suffered heavy losses in 2010 due to repeated long hours scheduled and unscheduled power outages and resultant disruptions in production processes. He urged the government to declare the year 2011 as the Year of Power Generation and initiate work on mega water projects including Kalabagh Dam. The PIAF Chairman also stressed the need for bringing down the fast escalating rate of inflation that has now started taking its toll.
The PIAF chief said that the rate of interest in India is 11.5 per cent. In Bangladesh it is 12.5 percent while in Sri Lanka it is 9.75 percent against 17.5 percent in Pakistan. There is a dire need to take corrective measures and focus shift on the part of the government as the Reformed General Sales tax would complicate the things beyond expectations of the government.
It would be better for the policy makers if they concentrate on increasing Tax-to-GDP ratio which is lowest in Pakistan. The Tax-to-GDP Ratio in Bangladesh is 14.5 percent in India 15 per cent, in Sri Lanka it is 16 per cent while in Pakistan it is 8.8 per cent, he said. If the government fails to take appropriate measures for the economic revival, the trade deficit would cross the staggering figure of 12,284 billion by June 2011, he added.