Showing concern over indefinite strike calls by CNG dealers, Islamabad Chamber of Commerce & Industry (ICCI) has called upon the government to take urgent measures to resolve CNG crisis and save economy from further trouble.

Zahid Maqbool, President ICCI in a statement said that first government promoted CNG as an environmental friendly fuel due to which Pakistan has become the country with the highest number of CNG powered vehicles in the world as more than 2-million vehicles have converted to CNG outpacing Brazil and Argentine. Moreover, the number of CNG filling stations has exceeded 17,000 while 4000 investors had shown interest to set up fuel stations of CNG in 2009.

He said these figures are enough to show that this industry has attracted huge private sector investment as almost 70 percent CNG stations are owned by private sector generating lot of jobs and economic activities. However, government decision of CNG load-shedding has plunged the whole economy into crisis like situation apart from creating acute problems for daily commuters.

Zahid Maqbool said government should have visualized the situation keeping in view the fastest growth in CNG sector and should have done proper planning to avoid the eruption of this crisis. He said frequent eruption of crisis like sugar, electricity and now gas shows lack of planning on the part of the government and if this trend was not stopped, business, economy and people will badly suffer in coming days.

He also criticized government decision to jack up gas prices from 1st January 2010. He said instead of raising gas prices, government should reduce prices of POL products & other utilities so that industry could flourish in the country. He said high cost of doing business and high production cost is producing multiple negative effects as it is badly affecting manufacturing activities, making our exports highly uncompetitive in international markets and discouraging investment.

ICCI President said the best way to increase tax-to-GDP ratio is to facilitate the smooth growth of businesses. But he lamented that the current policies of the government, instead of creating business friendly environment, are creating more problems for businessmen causing economic slump and shrinking tax revenue.