KARACHI: Chairman of National Business Group Pakistan, President Pakistan Businessmen and Intellectuals Forum (PBIF), Mian Zahid Hussain said our economy is not productive due to neglected industrial sector and continued patronage of non-productive sectors.

Pakistan has become a trading economy that can never function without loans as industrialisation has been discouraged for decades, he said.

Mian Zahid Hussain said that in the forthcoming budget, relief should be provided to the industrial sector and SMEs so as to accelerate the industrial process which will increase production, exports, employment and revenue.

Mian Zahid Hussain said that at present the expenditure, imports and population of the country are increasing while the state of exports is weak.

The amount of subsidies and incentives given to the elite and the amount of capital spent on their security is more than the circular debt, he said. He informed that Rs 600 billion is being spent annually to keep the jobs of 200,000 employees of failed state-owned companies, which amounts to punishing 220 million people.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2022