KARACHI: Irfan Iqbal Sheikh, President FPCCI, has welcomed the successful completion of first review of the staff-level agreement (SLA) with IMF pertaining to the current Stand-By Agreement (SBA).
The business community has stood by the government to surpass its revenue generation target despite all odds – and, above all, unbearable cost of doing business in the wake of triple whammy of electricity, gas and petroleum prices, he added.
Irfan Iqbal Sheikh reiterated FPCCI’s stance that Pakistan must embark on a tangible, pragmatic and business-friendly plan to get rid of IMF and, its unnecessary and ruthless conditionalities; which evaporate any possibility of business &economic growth. We can generate more resources through boosting trade and industry than knocking at the doors of IMF again in April 2024 after completion of the ongoing 9-month SBA in March 2024.
He questioned that why economic team of the government has still not been able to secure other sources of cheaper external financing from multilateral sources and international financial institutions (IFIs) like World Bank, International Finance Corporation (IFC), Asian Development Bank (ADB) and Islamic Development Bank (IDB). It is pertinent to note that IMF-SBA kicked off 5 months back in July 2023, he added.
Sheikh explained that due to the lack of institutional arrangements with IFIs, Pakistan will continue to rely on bilateral loans from friendly countries to complete the current IMF programme – while, our preference should have been investment, trade and industrial collaboration with friendly countries.
He demanded that now the government must tighten its regulatory oversight over the speculative trading of dollars by the commercial banks as the inter-bank market has shown depreciation of Pak rupee over the last 3 weeks or 17 trading sessions consecutively. As pointed out by FPCCI earlier in the week, the trend in international oil markets is bearish and today it has come down to $ 80.90 per barrel. He also expressed his disappointment that the government did not transfer the gains on account of declining international oil prices to the masses for the fortnight of November 16 to 30, 2023.
The FPCCI chief also welcomed the proposed 40 percent tax on the windfall profits of the commercial banks for 2021 and 2022.
The next in line should be facilitating access to finance to the business, industry and trade community through bringing down the key policy rate of the State Bank of Pakistan and the resultant rationalization of export finance scheme (EFS) and long-term financing facility (LTFF). Muhammad Suleman Chawla, SVP FPCCI, proposed that the government should announce confidence building measures with the business community; and, rationalization of the utility prices and lending rates could be the first steps towards putting Pakistan on a relatively accelerated economic growth trajectory backed by industrialization and exports.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2023
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