LCCI not best pleased by electricity tariff hike

At a time when the State Bank of Pakistan has already admitted that climate in Pakistan is not conducive for investment, the government is making the operations of even existing industries impossible by jacking up the input cost like the recent massive increase of Rs 6.39 per unit in the electricity tariff, the single largest raise in the country’s history, under monthly fuel adjustment mechanism.
In a statement issued here, the LCCI President Irfan Qaiser Sheikh opined that only because of the ongoing energy crisis the country had lost three per cent of its GDP while it is facing a serious lack of investment from both internal and external front for the last four years.
The LCCI president said that the government decision to raise electricity prices is bound to hit investments, manufacturing, exports, trade besides increasing the incidence of electricity pilferage that already is 25 per cent of the 22 per cent line losses and eating up Rs 50-75 billion. The LCCI President said that how the industry would remain competitive at such a high price of electricity which is one of the basic industrial raw materials. We already have the highest tariff in our region as in India, the electricity tariff for industry is 10.5 cents, in Bangladesh 10.75 cents and in Sri Lanka it is again 10.75 cent whereas in Pakistan tariff is already 15 cents meaning that 45 percent higher as compared to the region. With this proposed massive and unprecedented increase, we will have double the tariff of electricity what the regional countries are offering to their trade and industries leaving Pakistan totally uncompetitive and unviable in the international market place.