Inflation becomes a big economic challenge

F.P. Report

KARACHI: Chairman of National Business Group of FPCCI, President Pakistan Businessmen and Intellectuals Forum and All Karachi Industrial Alliance, and former provincial minister Mian Zahid Hussain has said inflation has become a big political and economic issues.

Talking to the business community on Monday, he said that it has compromised the standard of living of masses, as all efforts to tame prices have met with failure. Hussain said that the meetings of price control committee and directions to the departments and provinces to arrest inflation have become counterproductive which are not taken seriously by masses.

The veteran business leader said that price control mechanism is not working” otherwise, it would have provided some relief to the masses reeling under double-digit inflation.

He said: “The price of eggs in this winter has seen a severity percent hike over the corresponding period while the masses are forced to consume costly and substandard flour despite spending billions on wheat import. Similarly, the price of sugar has not dropped to the expected level in spite of imports and the beginning of the crushing season.”

He said that the uncontrolled food mafia continued to add to the miseries of the masses for unjustified profits while the government should pay attention to the agriculture sector to avoid imports to save precious foreign exchange.

Hussain said: “Despite massive food imports, the situation has not deteriorated as the remittances have increased substantially while FBR has also shown good results as far as the revenue collection is concerned.”

He said that hike in the price of petroleum products had increased cost of transportation which would increase food inflation while the prices of other items would also jump.