ISLAMABAD: Declaring Finance Minister Shaukat Tarin’s budget good, Chairman Nishat Group Mian Muhammad Mansha Saturday hoped that it would produce good results.
Speaking in The Geo News programme ‘Naya Pakistan Shahzad Iqbal Ke Saath’, he said that government’s growth policy was a positive step and the business community as well as the government authorities would have to take the economy forward jointly and expressed the hope that the growth rate might even go beyond 4%. He said Pakistan performed far better than many countries during the Covid-19 pandemic. He said good decisions were made by the government to manage the pandemic, which helped keep it under control. He however regretted that Pakistan delayed the start of vaccination against coronavirus, and the process would have to be accelerated now.
He said the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) took a good initiative by giving loans to various companies for payment of staff salaries and in various cases the loans were rescheduled for the purpose.
The business tycoon said that the SBP pumped the liquidity, which resulted in the economic growth, and it was the right policy. In the US and Europe, the central banks continued pumping the money into the market to sustain the economy.
To a question, Mian Mansha said that taking interest rate to 13% was a wrong decision, but the SBP rectified the policy soon. He said the bank’s interest rate at 7% is fine for now which could be further lowered by one percent.
Mansha said the China-USA rift also benefited Pakistan’s economy as it received various textile and other orders in that backdrop. He said Pakistan’s growth rate was better than various countries despite challenges, and the government would have to take more measures to maintain the growth rate.
Mian Mansha said that public sector losses could be lowered through privatisation of units and industries. He said Pakistan’s privatisation policy had produced better results than other countries. He said due to deregulation of the telecom industry, international trunk call charges of Rs120 dropped to as cheap as Rs2. Similarly, he said the DISCOs would have to be privatised to reduce the circular debt of the energy sector.
The known businessman said Pakistani banks and especially the SBP had been performing very well. He said even hiring of professionals by the public sector entities could not end losses, as that could be done only be owners of the units.
Mian Mansha said calling each other thief would not help take the national economy forward. He said even the bureaucracy was under fear of NAB at the moment, and it would have to be brought out of that fear for running the country and its economy smoothly. He said the real issue of the country was not corruption but incompetence and lack of decision-making. He said the corruption issue is a common phenomenon would have to be deferred for another time, and all would have to move forward to improve national economy.
He said it was a big issue that governments in the country do not survive more than two, three years and the economic policies initiated by one are not pursued by the other and in fact are scrapped. Mian Mansha cited his meeting with Bangladesh Prime Minister Hasina Wajid, who told him that she and Khalida Zia have serious political differences, fight in the streets, contest elections against each other, but never reject any government policy, signed by them as the prime minister which never hurts the economy due to continuation of policies.
The Nishat Group chairman said that there was a change in the behaviour of NAB [National Accountability Bureau] lately, as it had not made any case against any major business group during the past months. He believed that buyers would show interest if the government decides to privatise power DISCOs. He said the government prepared a report on Independent Power Producing companies without talking to them. He said the IPPs agreements were signed during Pervez Musharraf era in 2002, and there was no corruption in those pacts. Later during severe power crisis when the country suffered acute power shortage, his group and others were called and requested to install power plants. When the agreements were signed, sold for Rs 60 rupees, but now it costs Rs 160 which definitely increased companies’ profits. He said when the PTI government called them [IPPs] they agreed on giving a concession of Rs800 billion. He said his four power units were still contributing 1100mw electricity. If those projects were costly, why the government was still bearing with them? He said the IPPs were not at fault if the national economy failed to make progress.
Mian Mansha hoped that textile sector would make progress and its exports would increase in the near future. He said businesses were shifting from China currently, and Pakistan could benefit from it. He said Pakistan’s exports stand at $26 billion, which is negligible compared with other countries’ exports. He said it goes to the credit of SAPM Razak Dawood, who made lots of efforts for increasing exports.
Mian Mansha appreciated the government’s construction industry policy, as progress of this industry results in progress of 15-20 more industries. He said Jahangir Tareen was very good sugar producer, but what was happening to those engaged in this business to before everyone.
About future plans, he said soon he was going to establish a big dairy industry in Pakistan with the help of a Turkish company.
Speaking in the programme, Minister for Production and Industries Khusro Nakhtiar said that valuable revenue was generated by increasing exports. He said the large-scale manufacturing sector registered 13% growth and overall national growth rate was set at 6% for the current fiscal year.
To a question, the minister said the country would have to follow the IMF package due to its economic situation. However, the government refused to accept the Fund’s demand to increase electricity tariff, and it was trying to convince on its policy on the energy sector.
