Pakistan Business Council officials discuss national issues

KARACHI: In a recent meeting of the Pakistan Business Council’s (PBC) Board of Directors, major national issues regarding the economy and development of Pakistan were discussed.
The meeting was attended by the leading directors in Pakistan including President & CEO Bank Alfalah Atif Aslam Bajwa, Chairman Descon Abdul Razak Dawood, CEO Unilever Pakistan Ehsan Malik and CEO Pakistan Business Council Kamran Y Mirza.
The Board was of the opinion that given the current state of the economy, the decision of the SBP to hold interest rates at their current levels was appropriate. However, they said, “The PBC would have liked to have seen a decrease in the rates to stimulate investments and demand.”
They said, a stable exchange rate is an important indicator of economic stability, but it should not be at the expense of competiveness of domestic manufacturing.
It was noted that inflation is at a record low primarily due to a drop in commodity – oil prices. The board said that this opportunity should be used to reduce subsidies especially in the energy sector so that when prices rebound there is no major public backlash. The Board also expressed its concerns regarding stagnating exports and the excessive dependence on a few markets/commodities. It hoped that the Ministry of Commerce (MoC) will actively involve the PBC in drafting and implementing the next strategic trade policy. In reference to the NTC Act 2015, the Board expressed concern regarding Section 70 of the Anti-dumping Duties Ordinance 2015. The Board felt that this section will effectively ensure that no action initiated by the NTC on a complaint from a domestic manufacturer will be allowed to proceed to its logical conclusion in a timely manner.
PBC decided to actively interact with the legislature, media, MoC to rectify this major flaw in a law designed for providing a level playing field for the domestic industry. The PBC Board called for a review of Pakistan’s FTA policy. It

observed that none of the FTA that Pakistan had signed had led to an increase in domestic manufacturing for exports to the FTA partner country. On the contrary, not only had the FBR’s revenues gone down due to increased diversion of imports from non-FTA countries, but that the cheaper imports had in some instances irreparably damaged domestic manufacturing and led to an increase in pressure on existing manufacturers by the FBR to make up for lost revenues. The Board supports all moves by the FBR to increase the domestic tax base and document sectors of the economy which are currently out of the tax net.
As the PBC serves as the secretariat in Pakistan for the Pakistan India Joint Business Forum (PIJBF) the Board supported trade normalisation with India based on the principle of reciprocity. It cautioned the government against granting India NDMA without ensuring a level playing field for the Pakistani businesses both in their domestic markets as well as when exporting to India.