PIAF terms MTBF as business-friendly

LAHORE (PPI) - Pakistan Industrial & Traders Association Front (PIAF) Thursday termed the approval of Medium Term Budgetary Framework (MTBF) as business-friendly.
In a statement issued here the PIAF Chairman Irfan Qaiser Sheikh said that the new budgetary system would help strengthen economy of the country provided government takes solid measures to achieve the targets set for three years term.
The PIAF Chairman said that it would be beneficial to the overall economy of the country if government come up with a three-years energy policy and initiates work on war-footing on electricity generation through coal.
Irfan Qaiser Sheikh said that the business community input would be a prerequisite to get the desired results government wanted to achieve through new budgetary measures.
The PIAF Chairman further said that the government had created troubles for both the industry and agriculture by increasing the prices of petroleum products. He said that hike in petroleum product prices had starting putting a very negative impact on industrial costs.
The PIAF Chairman said that the government should announce cut in markup rates, which are too high when are compared with any of the developed economies, he added. He said that interest rate in US is 0.25 per cent, in UK 1.5 per cent, in Canada 1.5 per cent, in Australia 4.25 per cent, in Japan 0.1pc, in China 5.58 per cent, in India 5.5pc and in Bangladesh 7.61pc.
He suggested to the government to immediately bring down the markup rates to single digit to support the industrial sector.