Felicitating the nation on the smooth passage of 18th constitutional amendment from both houses of the parliament, Zahid Maqbool, President, Islamabad Chamber of Commerce & Industry (ICCI) has called upon the government to develop a similar national unity for solving all major economic problems of the country.

He said that the economy was confronted with multiple serious problems which required that leaders of all political parties should display national solidarity and come forward to support the government with concrete & unanimous proposals to steer the country out of current challenges.

He said that energy deficiency has emerged as the foremost serious problem as the country was facing about 5000 MW power shortfall which has caused almost 50 percent reduction in production activities. 

He said due to energy deficit industry was suffering a loss of about Rs.240 billion per annum while exporters were losing over $1 billion of export orders. He said that small industries accounted for 99 percent of the export-based industrial production and in the absence of alternative source of energy, they were facing substantial delay in shipments and thus were losing export orders worth million of dollars.
He stressed upon the government to urgently resolve the circular debt issue, which was the major cause of current energy crunch and added that its clearance will pave way for increase in power production.

He said foreign direct investment (FDI) also posted a decline of 49 percent during nine months of the current fiscal year and termed the power deficit as one of the major factors behind this decline. He said more delay in coping with energy problem will further discourage investment in the country.

However, he lauded the initiative of Prime Minister Syed Yusuf Raza Gilani for convening a two-day energy conference and hoped that this moot will help in formulating concrete proposals to resolve the issue at the earliest. He urged that business leaders of the country should also be taken on board so that they could give their input to the government to deal with energy issue.

Zahid Maqbool said it was the time that government should deliver up to the expectation of people as they have been waiting patiently for two long years for relief measures.