Industries reeling from energy shortages

Call for framing long-term policies for survival of business.

FAISALABAD: Industries have suffered badly in the wake of shortage of basic inputs and the government and private sector must make joint endeavours to propel industrial growth, says Afsheen Afzal, Director of National Institute of Management (NIM) Islamabad.

She was speaking during a visit of participants of the 14th Mid-Career Management Course to the Faisalabad Chamber of Commerce and Industry (FCCI) on Friday.

She stressed that deteriorating conditions in the industrial sector called for undertaking positive steps and framing long-term policies for its survival and growth.

“Pakistan is rich in resources and our people are industrious and hardworking. By resolving the energy crisis, not only exports will increase, but investment will also pick up pace,” she said.

Welcoming the course participants, FCCI President Mian Zahid Aslam pointed out that an enabling business environment was important for industrialisation and economic growth in the country.

Citing acute shortage of electricity and gas, he said this had disrupted industrial production and hampered growth of trade and business, with the textile sector taking the worst hit.

He expressed fears that the country would not be able to achieve the export target of $25 billion in the current fiscal year, leading to widening of trade deficit, shrinking of tax revenues and building up of pressure on the rupee, which has already dropped about 8% from December 2011 to December 2012.

Referring to his recent visit to Heimtextil fair – the largest exhibition in the world – in Germany, he said a 60% decline in orders placed with Pakistan’s exporters indicated how much confidence foreign buyers had lost in Pakistan.

He held Ministry of Industries and Ministry of Textile equally responsible for the deteriorating condition of industries.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 19^th, 2013.

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