KARACHI: President of United Business Group (UBG) Zubair Tufail has urged Prime Minister of Pakistan Mian Shehbaz Sharif and Federal Minister of Finance Miftah Ismail to appoint a permanent governor of the State Bank within the next 48 hours

He said that the commercial banks are selling the US dollar at arbitrary rates and yesterday when the dollar was at 229 rupees interbank, some banks continued to sell the dollar at 234 rupees to needy importers, while the State Bank took no notice of commercial banks’ arbitrariness.

Zubair Tufail said that the country’s economic situation is at a critical point and experts now compare Pakistan’s economic situation to the situation in Sri Lanka.

It is very alarming, the State Bank and the Ministry of Finance are not paying any serious attention to the historic and worst fall of the rupee in the country, and a permanent governor of the State Bank is not being appointed. It is a proof of the rulers’ lack of seriousness.

He said that in order to reduce ongoing trade deficit, it is necessary to remove the country from uncertainty and immediately ban the import of non-essential items and impose a 100% margin on their import.

Zubair Tufail said that domestic industries, construction industry and dozens of related industries, agricultural sector and IT sector need support, adding the increasing electricity tariff has stopped the wheel of industrial production.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2022s