KARACHI: The leaders of the United Business Group (UBG) have called upon the government and the opposition to shun their differences and immediately sit together to devise strategies to meet the challenges of poor economy and looming poverty and inflation.

The entire nation is passing through the worst situation which has been further aggravated by devastating flood while all the political parties seem to be non-serious in resolving the present critical economic situation, they added.

They lamented that Pakistan has failed to attract a significant amount of FDI for more than a decade and the recent political turmoil has further damaged the country’s image globally.

The significant fall in FDI reflected the poor performance of economy on external front as well, they added.

They said the data released by the State Bank of Pakistan regarding significant decline in outflow of profits and dividends of foreign investment is because of lackluster economic activities in the country.

The latest data of SBP also reveals that the repatriation of profits and dividends nosedived to $ 28.2 million in July - August against $ 396.4 million during the same period of last year. It has been further revealed in the report that the economic activities started contracting mainly because of political uncertainty plaguing the economic horizon of the country.

The country wise outflows in comparison to last year were $ 3.1 million to China against $ 37.5 million, $ 0.1 million to Switzerland against $ 41.4 million, $ 2.9 million to UK against $ 94.8 million, $ 8.5 million to USA against $ 86.9 million.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2022