Economic & Financial Analyst, Ateeq Ur Rehman has said Pakistan has no other choice except to produce all kinds of raw material indigenously, instead of depending on importing them in present circumstances.
He said the government should permit vehicles' movement carrying imported raw materials, imported capital/finished goods for manufacturing & pharmaceutical industries, etc and make their movement easy on inter-provincial & inter-city roads to keep essential industrial units, operative.
It is the need of the day that we should maintain the smooth supply chain, under the present Covid-19 situation/ lockdown, he said
Predominantly, this is government's prerogative to encourage it and ease its import compression policies and high input cost for which the manufacturing sector suffered serious set backs and it had slowed down the existing Industrial sector and economic growth of the country. It produced massive layoffs. Unemployment is a big economic disaster of the country.
He said that the SBP temporary refinance facility should be used for bank lending for plant & machinery in the replenishment and revival of sick industries of the country.
As per the SBP it is 7 percent fixed for 10 years whereas it should be 5 percent fixed for 15 years, owing to prevailing difficult economic conditions and payback complications.
Moreover, the relief package announced by SBP with PBA, loans and advances is an excellent step specially for SMEs of Pakistan, where the loan payments and advances were deferred for 1 year except for markup, also the existing limit of loan for SMEs Rs 125 million has been enhanced to Rs 140 million.
He added that under such big markup plus Kibor how can the business community, exporters, manufacturers in general and SMEs in particular avail the financing relief.
The central banks of the whole world have lowered down the interest rates to the bottom but in our country it is the highest after Argentina. Our central bank should consider the request.