The Lahore Chamber of Commerce and Industry on Saturday urged the government to bring down the prices of petroleum products and their prices in the International market registered visible decline.
In a statement issued here Saturday, the LCCI president Irfan Qaiser Sheikh said that if Indian government can curtail the prices of petroleum products by about Indian Rs.11 per liter (about 19 Pakistani rupees) in one go, the Pakistani authorities should also make equal cut in the prices. The LCCI President said that the cut in oil prices would cause no dent to government revenues as it would just be passing on what it is getting from the international market. Irfan Qaiser Sheikh said that by bringing down the prices of petroleum products government would be arresting fast escalating inflation graph while cut in cost of doing business would help expedite productions that have nose-dived due to an acute electricity shortage and high cost of doing business. The LCCI President also urged the government to 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. The LCCI president said that the entire industrial sector was already facing multiple internal and external challenges and a cut POL prices would help provide them some relief. He said that the ongoing high prices of petroleum products had also hit the agriculture sector. The LCCI President said that not only the transportation cost of goods would come down but fares of public transport would also decrease. He said that Government is producing huge amount of electricity through thermal means and after cut in petroleum prices, prices of electricity would come down.
Irfan Qaiser Sheikh said that the Lahore Chamber of Commerce and Industry had for the last many months been calling on the concerned government circles to take measures for the promotion of alternate fuels as trade deficit was fast widening due to heavy imports under the head of petroleum products.
