Call to address industrial growth hindering issues

LAHORE
WELCOMING the 100 basis points-cut in the discount rate by the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP), Progressive Group, a representative platform of traders and businessmen, has urged the government to pay attention towards other issues hindering the growth of industrial sector and expansion of business activities in the country.
Hailing the government move of bringing down the markup rate it termed it a good omen for the business and industrial activities, but at the same time exhorted rulers to expedite efforts for resolving the issues of power and gas shortage.
Progressive Group President Khalid Usman and Secretary Information Muhammad Ejaz Tanveer in a statement issued on Wednesday said it was good that the government had brought down the rate of markup to some extent after ensuring reduction in the petroleum products’ prices in line with the international rates.
However, they said the electricity and gas outages were still hampering the industrial production and business activities in the country.
They said the business community always direly needed loans at lower rate for setting up new industries or expansion of their business and reduction in the markup rate would ensure decrease in their financial issues to a larger extent. They said that setting up of new industries or expansion in the business activities as a result of lowering markup rate would create new job opportunities as well as enhancing government’s revenue by resolving the financial hardships being faced by the state.
However, they stated that expansion could only be ensured or investment could only be attracted from abroad or inside the country if other issues were resolved amicably.