Pakistan Industrial and Traders Association Front (PIAF) has urged the authority to pave way to get rid of foreign loans and evolve comprehensive strategy to utilise resources available in the country.
PIAF Chairman Sohail Lashari said on Sunday that energy crisis, complex taxation system, repeated increases in electricity rates, inflation, unemployment, law and order and high cost of doing business were serious problems.
He said energy crisis was hollowing the foundations of industrial sector for which the authority had to allocate sufficient funds for Kalabagh Dam, Thar Coal Project and early completion of Pak-Iran Gas Pipeline project.
He stressed upon the authority to allocate funds for Kalabagh Dam in the federal budget 2012-13. Kalabagh Dam was a must to ensure availability of water to the agriculture sector and cheaper electricity to both trade and industry of the country, he maintained. He said the government should develop consensus among the federating units by convincing them that this was the only way out of ongoing power crisis.
Lashari also called upon the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) to bring down the mark-up rate to the single digit.
