Give priority to economic issues and not rifts

Economic stability is the most important issue that     needed immediate handling to make Pakistan    politically and economically sound and safe. And all    other issues can wait and are subservient to    economic stability of the country. These are the views of Majyd Aziz, a former President of Karachi Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Khurram Shahzad, Siraj Qasim Teli, Dawood Jan Mohammad and other market experts.

While giving his comments to the Money Plus on the current political and economic scenario, Majyd Aziz said economically Pakistan was in dire straits and needed immediate attention to save the country from falling into an economic pit from where it will be difficult to come for a long time.

No doubt political issues like judicial crisis are important but these issues can wait because those were not matter of life and death for the country, facing one of the worst economic crisis created by the previous rulers' mismanagement and international economic situation, particularly staggering rise in oil products and stunning shortage of food grains all over the world.

If the economic issues were not handled on priority basis and media continued to highlight secondary political issues, things would turn simply disastrous and there would be a plenty of uncertainty, both political and economic.

Due to deepening economic crisis and political rifts, the capital is being taken away to the Gulf and invested in real estate by Pakistanis.

Majyd Aziz said that country needs economic stability because food inflation has created mess and made the life of people miserable.

Whatever is going on, on the political front is tantamount to divert the attention from price hike, and impact of coming budget on the people, as the major political parties are indulged in non-issue.

Government should convene an All Parties Conference (APC) on one point agenda- Economic situation of Pakistan, where the parties frame policies in the light of proposals submitted by business community and industrialists, he said when asked for suggestion.

The country's economy has been shattered as million of dollars were being shifted to Dubai and Ajman daily, as according to statistics in the month of April highest capital shifted abroad. Worker's remittances also diverted to Dubai where investment in real estate business was booming.

First priority of the government should resolve the economic crisis knocking at the doors of the country and then to talk about restoration of judges.

Commenting on the announcement of Federal Minister for Water and Power for fast-track generation of additional 1,200MW of electricity, he said, he failed to understand how the aforementioned amount of electricity could be generated in a period of 12 to 18 months.

Siraj Qasim Teli, a leading industrialist said that government should focus on the economy, as the most important issue of the common man is to curtail the prices, reduce their cost of living and providing them jobs, adding that these issues have taken a back seat.

Analyst Khurram Shahzad at InvestCap said that political scenario of the country has created jitters in the stock market because of the way the outgoing PML (N) finance minister had presented a bleak picture of the economy, which created uncertainty in the market.

He said the issues of food inflation and joblessness were most important then the judges' issue which was a secondary issue.

He said keeping in view of political uncertainty the foreign investors were quite cautious and kept themselves away from the country's capital market because of frequent outburst against the previous regime's economic policies by blaming it of presenting fudged economic figures.

He said the government should seriously check the falling value of the rupee against the dollar, which indicates that the flight of capital has been increasing from Pakistan.

Dawood Jan Mohammad, Chief Executive of DJM Securities said that political uncertainty has weakened the market. He said market remained volatile till the announcement of the budget because the investors were waiting for new government policies.

Responding to a question, he said that government was talking about Capital Value Tax (CVT) but in countries like Malaysia and Bangladesh no such taxes are collected from investors/brokers on sale/purchase of share from the stock market.

He hoped that the coming national budget would be economic and investment friendly as the new finance minister Naveed Qamar has a good team including bankers, which would unfold good economic and market policies.

He said that we have sent various proposals to the government appraising the difficulties facing the market as well as the investors.

Experts said the government still needs not only to provide consistency in the economic policies but also allow more incentives and facilities to equity investments to convert interest into real investment and to create new job opportunities besides enhancing government's revenues.

They said that chaos had already gripped the economy, as fresh export orders for Pakistani products were not forthcoming. Foreign buyers are reluctant to visit the country and even domestic investors have been on the sidelines waiting for a peaceful business environment.

Foreign investors were quite cautious and kept themselves away from the country's capital market because of frequent outburst against the previous government's economic policies by accusing it of presenting fudged economic figures, a number of market players commenting on the performance of stock market said.

There is virtually no economic policy as the new budget is hardly a couple of week away. Food inflation and joblessness have hit the common man hard.

The government has closed its eyes on rising oil prices in the world markets and its impact on local oil prices followed by weakening strength of rupee against the dollar making imports costlier. People are now in dire need of some relief. If the government cannot resolve the judiciary issue, it should at least make serious efforts to stem the food prices, the experts maintained.

They said there was a need to settle the judiciary issue immediately so that the confidence of business community could be restored and trading activities could pick up.

Given the economic tribulations of the masses, one would hope that the economic managers would take gauntlet of the situation and frame policies which, will provide relief to common man.