HYDERABAD-President Hyderabad Chamber of Commerce and Industry (HCCI) Adeel Siddiqui has said that agreement with International Monetary Fund (IMF) was encouraging for the country as it could addreass some economic issues confronting the country’s economy. He, however, emphasized that future caretakers and the new government should have to continue with this programme.   He urged Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif to take the IMF programme as the last one and focus revival of the economy around the clock failing which Pakistan would be borne $ 8 billion in losses every year and remain dependent on foreign loans.
In a statement issued here Monday, the HCCI president said that those dealing in the import and exports sector should understand clearly that this would help resolve imports-related issues. He said the imports sector had been struggling in the absence of this IMF deal and remarked that “we are borrowing money from IMF that we have to return along with markup”. 
“This has increased our burden further”, he said and added that since economic activities had stalled thus this borrowing had become inevitable.  The HCCI president said that people now hoping that imports would now improve with dollar availability and this had also affected the supply chain thus causing a hike in prices. He said that hike in prices might decline now. 
He said that it would be unrealistic to expect that this latest development would make gas or electricity tariffs cheaper or that interest rates would drop.  He said that IMF would provide $ 3 billion besides other lending agencies’ assistance as these agencies had linked their loan with IMF’s nod. Adeel Siddiqui hoped that Pakistan would have been having $10 billion by next year. He said that export companies that were dependent on raw material imports would increase their production. He emphasized that Pakistan should devise a policy for lessening Rs 2,600 billion deficits inclusive of the energy sector’s Rs 600 billion, Pakistan Railways’ Rs 200 billion and Pakistan Steel Mills’ Rs 206 billion. 
Siddiqui said that strong policy was needed for overcoming PIA’s state of financial affairs, adding that spending $8 billion on loss-earning entities would not be advisable thus reform process should be taken in hand immediately so that Rs 2,600 billion annual deficits could be overcome. He said that it would help revive the economy.  He proposed that all such institutions should be privatized in the first instance and government should not take any pressure in this regard. He said the prime minister should focus on the revival of the economy after the IMF programme which should be taken as the last one.  He said that unless it happened, Pakistan would keep seeking loans to meet Rs 2,600 billion annual deficits to run loss-earning enterprises therefore policies that could revive the sinking economy should be framed.