Sheikh Amir Waheed, President, Islamabad Chamber of Commerce & Industry has said that the Economic Coordination Committee has approved increase in gas prices for domestic consumers from 10 percent to 143 percent that would make the life of common man more miserable and called upon the government to review its decision to save people from further trouble. He was inaugurating a business outlet at Karachi Company, G-9 Markaz, Islamabad. Muhammad Naveed Malik Senior Vice President, Nisar Mirza Vice President ICCI, M. Ashfaq Chatha, Zahid Satti and others were also present at the occasion.
 

Sheikh Amir Waheed said that increase in gas price will significantly enhance the cost of Tandoor roti for the common man while it could give rise to inflation as well. He urged that the government should avoid taking measures that would put more burden on the common man. He further stressed that the government should not enhance gas tariff for industry. He said that Pakistan was facing rising fiscal deficit and one better option to reduce this deficit was to promote country’s exports. He was of the view that hiking gas tariff for industry would affect production activities and further reduce exports. Therefore, he emphasized that he government should focus on taking measures that should bring down the cost of doing business for industry. It would give boost to exports, reduce inflation and decrease trade and fiscal deficit of the country. 
 

Sheikh Amir Waheed also called upon the government to consider privatizing lossmaking PSEs as these enterprises were proving a big drain on the national exchequer. He said that many PSEs including Pakistan Steel Mills, PIA, gas and electricity enterprises were incurring huge losses. He said an assessment of IMF have shown that the accumulated losses of PSEs have exceeded Rs.1.2 trillion which was 4 percent of GDP. He said that every year, government was spending Rs.500 to Rs.600 billion to bail out these PSEs and keep them afloat while this amount could be spent on health, education and social development of people. He was of the view that the best way to get rid of these lossmaking PSEs was to hand over their management to the private sector so that with the introduction of best business practices, private sector could turn these enterprises into profitmaking business entities. 
 

M. Naveed Malik Senior Vice President and Nisar Mirza Vice President ICCI said that privatization and deregulation of banking and telecom sectors have brought plenty of dividends to the economy as it improved their performance and service delivery, created thousands of new jobs and improved tax revenue of the country. They said that deregulation of gas and electricity utilities would bring competition in the sector, enhance their efficiency and improve service delivery to the end consumers. Therefore, they stressed that the government should give serious consideration to open the power sector for private investment.