The traders and industrialists in country’s this commercial hub Monday declared the recent hike in petroleum and CNG prices as a most unjustified move by the present government demanding its immediate withdrawal. Patron In-Chief, Korangi Association of Trade and Industry (KATI), S M Muneer, Chairman, Ehtesham Uddin, Vice Chairmen, Hasham A Razzak, Tariq Malik and President, All Karachi Industrial Alliance (AKIA) Mian Zahid Hussain while rejecting the massive increase and slapping surcharge on CNG said the government’s decision was just to further squeeze the poor people of country besides crippling the trade and industry. They said that petroleum prices were already at the highest level and any further increase would prove the last straw that breaks the camel’s back. The KATI chairman said a comparison between the international oil prices and local prices is enough to make the point that the local prices have registered more than 50 per cent increase in the last two years in comparison with the global rates. Therefore, he said, that the government has no justification to make any increase in POL prices. Mian Zahid said that the increase would hit all sectors of the economy that would jack up the inflation and resultant hike in mark-up rates and disturb the entire economic cycle. He said that to keep the economic cycle well on track, the government would have to shelve the decision to increase oil prices. He said that instead of passing on any surge in international market to masses, the government should cut the number of taxes on petroleum products as the fuel is the engine of growth. If the fuel would be heavily taxed the entire economy would suffer and the same happened in Pakistan as the repeated increases in the POL prices had ruined the industrial and economic activities. He said that only because of high cost of doing business in Pakistan, a large number of industrial units had already shifted their operations to other countries and the recent decision would force more industrialists to follow the suit. The KATI chief said that the entire industrial sector was already facing multiple internal and external challenges and any new increase in POL prices would further aggravate the economic situation. Pakistan agriculture sector is engine of growth. The increase in petroleum prices would increase the input cost of agriculture production as high speed diesel is being used in tractors, tube-wells, harvesters, thrashers and other agriculture machinery. He said that the cost of thermal generation by private sector to go up. “Not only the transportation cost of goods would multiply but fares of public transport would also increase manifold,” he added.
