Pakistan Carpet Manufacturers and Exporters Association (PCMEA) senior vice chairman Usman Ashraf expressed serious concern over the approval of increasing the price of electricity by Rs 12.13 per unit for the export sector will eliminate Pakistan from global carpet market.
He expressed these views while addressing the weekly review meeting in the office of the association. Senior central leader Abdul Latif Malik, Chairman of Carpet Training Institute (CTI) Ijazur Rehman, senior members Riaz Ahmed, Pervez Hanif, Saeed Khan, Major (retd) Akhtar Nazir, Akbar Malik, Shahid Hassan, Umeer Usman, Daniyal Hanif, Faisal Saeed Khan, and others were also present.
Usman Ashraf said according to the recent statement of Federal Planning Minister Ahsan Iqbal, Pakistan needs to increase its exports from 30 billion dollars to 100 billion dollars in the next 5 to 8 years but the question arises, what facilities is the government providing to the exporters to achieve this goal?
He said that no business can develop due to uncertainty and instability since continuity of policies is indispensable for national development but unfortunately, we are running on ad hocism. He said that the government will have to restructure the export structure and for this, it is necessary to study the successful countries. “Exports have to be increased for the improvement of the country’s economy, political stability is indispensable for the development of the economy; continuity is needed for the success of the policies,” he added.
He said that the government should have strongly resisted the IMF’s strict condition of ending subsidies for export sectors and electricity for farmers. If the IMF was persuaded that our exports would be less, how would the foreign loans which we had to pay back in dollars make it possible to repay them?
Usman Ashraf said that Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and related ministers are requested to solve the problems of the exporters related to the State Bank while obstacles in procuring semi-finished raw materials through the Torkham border should also be removed. “For the production of handmade carpets, they are imported from foreign countries, including chemicals, but due to non-opening of LCs, there are serious difficulties in filling export orders, which will have an impact in case of reduction in exports,” he concluded.
PCMEA decries power tariff hike in the export sector
