Net inflows of foreign investment surged to $3.712 billion dollars during first eleven months of the current fiscal year 2013-14. However, there was dire need to mobilise foreign investment in critical sectors including oil and gas exploration, power production and transportation and infrastructure, said Sohail Bin Rashid, President of FCCI.
He said for the last two decades the economy was in deep crisis and the present government was trying its best to implement micro and macro-level economic policies to achieve ambitious GDP growth of 4.4 percent set for the following financial year. He was also appreciative of the expatriate Pakistanis who worked hard and remitting their hard earned money to the country to the tune of over $14 billion annually. He said Faisalabad was lucky where Chinese economic giants were agreed to invest $2 billion. He said the textile sector was the mainstay of the national economy and proper incentives have been given to this sector in the current budget 2014-15 to come out of the turmoil and make preparation to harvest the benefits of GSP Plus.
He particularly quoted the incentive of duty drawback given to exporters of textile products on FOB values on their enhanced exports; if it increases beyond 10 percent over the last year's export, the main beneficiary of this will be the valued-added textile sector that will get 4 percent, made-ups that will get 2 percent followed by processed fabrics to get 1 percent.
Similarly, the mark-up rate of export on re-finance scheme has also been reduced 9.4 percent to 7.5 percent from the current financial year. He said that series of steps have also been taken to facilitate the exporters. The FCCI president said comprehensive measures have been taken to involve 45 percent of our youth in productive activities by launching different programmes and schemes to harness their mental abilities along with providing them necessary skills and administrative capability to face the future challenges.
He said to overcome the loadshedding of electricity which has eroded our GDP growth by 2 percent, the government had launched 8 power sector projects in the year 2013-14 and continuation of 26 power projects including various projects already in process is hoped to get rid of the of the power crisis in the following years.
The FCCI president said economic policies were in the right direction and the business community was fully satisfied with the government attitude and mindset. He said it was for the first time the federal and provincial budgets have been prepared with grand consultation process and its pleasant impact was visible that there was no post-budget chaos. He said most of the people were satisfied with the budget as the government has tried its best to facilitate the vulnerable and marginalized sections of the society with increased funding in the social sector.
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