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ISLAMABAD: President Disposable Food Packaging Association (DFPA) Ahsan Shahid has said that the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz-led coalition government in the center and in largest province of Punjab would prove to a be a business friendly and hope it would seek consultation with the real stakeholder to steer the country out of its present economic problems.
Ahsan Shahid said given the sincerity of purpose and the hard work of the government in the past, he was very optimistic that a bright economic future awaits Pakistan and the living standard of the people of Pakistan would improve under this government.
The DFPA President said that the economic initiatives taken by this party’s government in the past are in line with its manifesto and that transparency and abidance of rules and regulations are the guiding principles of policy of the government.
He said that this government had inherited a broken economy which can be gauged from the fact that fiscal deficit had reached 8.8 percent, growth stagnated at 3.6 percent, there was revenue shortfall of Rs440 billion and a public debt of Rs14,500 billion which was Rs3000 billion in 1999. The entire Public Sector Development Program (PSDP) was being financed by loans, he added.
He said that undertaking structural reforms require political will. He said that enacting structural reforms, such as improvements in tax collection system, bureaucracy and ease of doing business requires major political will and strict implementation of policies, he added.
He also called for promoting industrialization and enhancing exports through lowering the cost of production, paying early refunds to solve liquidity crunch and relaxing import policy for industrial raw material. He said the business community was facing problems like unannounced load shedding, parking, departmental proceedings, overbilling and expensive electricity and gas in the markets. He asked the government to appreciate the role of trade, industry and exporters, providing mass employment to the jobless population of the country.
Ahsan Shahid said that it was in the backdrop of this dire economic situation that the government had to take painful decisions so that a direction could be given to the economy.
He said that the power was necessary to identify new tax payers who travel internationally or pay high fees for the children.
He pledged that the business people will show generosity and come forward to help their poor country fellows, he added.
He said that the current loan should not add to the national debts stock and should not be utilized to repay loans taken by the previous governments. There can be a debate within the country about the utilization of earlier loans taken by previous governments but we have to fulfill our national obligations. Taking loans and making capital investments is fair but using them for meeting current expenditure is unjust.
He said that in the near future the government should take measures to improve and build the existing foreign exchange reserves.
Ahsan Shahid said that apart from austerity measures including cut in non-salary expenditure of 30%, abolition of discretionary fund of Prime Minister and Ministers, abolishing of secret funds account except for two national security institutions reflects the seriousness and the intentions of the government to bring.
 Ahsan Shahid has said that the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz-led){kind=link}