The Pakistan Business Council (PBC), a lobby group representing Pakistan’s major corporations and banks, has opposed the planned increase of 27 percent in taxes and electricity tariffs as agreed by the government with the IMF for the resumption of its loan program.
In a letter sent to Finance Minister Hammad Azhar on Monday, the PBC points out that the “direction of recent measures” is counter to the challenges like preserving livelihoods as the country fights the third wave of Covid-19, addressing food shortages and inflation, building export momentum, and developing the competitiveness of domestic industry to stem the pressure of rising commodity costs on the balance of trade.
“The surest way to sap growth of the economy is to drain it of jobs and disposable income, curb demand, deny competitiveness to industry and hurt investor sentiment through a knee-jerk reversal of the policies,” Ehsan A Malik, PBC chief executive, writes to the minister.