AIRLINK 72.59 Increased By ▲ 3.39 (4.9%)
BOP 4.99 Increased By ▲ 0.09 (1.84%)
CNERGY 4.29 Increased By ▲ 0.03 (0.7%)
DFML 31.71 Increased By ▲ 0.46 (1.47%)
DGKC 80.90 Increased By ▲ 3.65 (4.72%)
FCCL 21.42 Increased By ▲ 1.42 (7.1%)
FFBL 35.19 Increased By ▲ 0.19 (0.54%)
FFL 9.33 Increased By ▲ 0.21 (2.3%)
GGL 9.82 Increased By ▲ 0.02 (0.2%)
HBL 112.40 Decreased By ▼ -0.36 (-0.32%)
HUBC 136.50 Increased By ▲ 3.46 (2.6%)
HUMNL 7.14 Increased By ▲ 0.19 (2.73%)
KEL 4.35 Increased By ▲ 0.12 (2.84%)
KOSM 4.35 Increased By ▲ 0.10 (2.35%)
MLCF 37.67 Increased By ▲ 1.07 (2.92%)
OGDC 137.75 Increased By ▲ 4.88 (3.67%)
PAEL 23.41 Increased By ▲ 0.77 (3.4%)
PIAA 24.55 Increased By ▲ 0.35 (1.45%)
PIBTL 6.63 Increased By ▲ 0.17 (2.63%)
PPL 125.05 Increased By ▲ 8.75 (7.52%)
PRL 26.99 Increased By ▲ 1.09 (4.21%)
PTC 13.32 Increased By ▲ 0.24 (1.83%)
SEARL 52.70 Increased By ▲ 0.70 (1.35%)
SNGP 70.80 Increased By ▲ 3.20 (4.73%)
SSGC 10.54 No Change ▼ 0.00 (0%)
TELE 8.33 Increased By ▲ 0.05 (0.6%)
TPLP 10.95 Increased By ▲ 0.15 (1.39%)
TRG 60.60 Increased By ▲ 1.31 (2.21%)
UNITY 25.10 Decreased By ▼ -0.03 (-0.12%)
WTL 1.28 Increased By ▲ 0.01 (0.79%)
BR100 7,566 Increased By 157.7 (2.13%)
BR30 24,786 Increased By 749.4 (3.12%)
KSE100 71,902 Increased By 1235.2 (1.75%)
KSE30 23,595 Increased By 371 (1.6%)

Economic and financial analyst, Ateeq-ur-Rehman, has said that the SMEs and small businesses are the backbone of the economy, and they should be given grants as bailout packages to survive.

He said that at this increasingly challenging time, SMEs or small businesses cannot afford loans. They should be given grants as bailout packages to survive. He said SMEs were direct victims of the IMF due to the latter's dictation to raise utility tariffs, interest rates, unstable exchange rates and curb on imports.

The additional cost added massively increased the cost of doing business which was quite damaging to the whole economy and especially to the SMEs.

He said that the SMEs and small businessmen were on the verge of devastation and a further debt burden with such high interest rates would not be feasible as they have no cash to survive.

Their basic issue was a working capital, which had been massively affected due to the lockdown. Moreover, the commercial banks were demanding hefty collateral which was impossible for small businesses to arrange. Therefore complying with such bailout packages/loans was not sensible, he added.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2020

Comments

Comments are closed.