RECORDER REPORT

LAHORE: The federal budget lacks any initiative to accelerate business activities so that jobs could be retained in the industrial sector amidst Covid-19 pandemic.

Chairman of the Pakistan Industrial and Traders Associations Front (PIAF), Mian Nauman Kabir, expressed his disappointment over the budget and said no plan was given in the budget that could create more employment opportunities.

“If it’s a corona-based budget, no steps have been announced to tackle this serious issue,” he said, and added that unrealistic targets of 2.1 percent GDP growth and 27 percent growth in revenue could not be achieved without new taxes.

No financial plan had been offered to the Covid-19-hit domestic trade and industry, importers, exporters, and small and medium enterprises who had been severely affected due to the prolonged lockdown, he said. The business community had been expecting a relief budget with huge relaxation in utility tariffs to facilitate the documented and registered SMEs and the whole industry, he said.

PIAF senior vice chairman Nasir Hameed said the budget lacked steps to reduce the energy cost, one of the biggest factors behind high production costs. Meanwhile, commenting on the budget, the Chairman of the United Business Group of the Federation of Pakistan Chambers of Commerce and Industry, Iftikhar Ali Malik, hailed the reforms for ease of doing business and said that the measures introduced in the budget would help in setting a proper direction for the national economy.

He said that because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the manufacturers, traders, retailers, importers/exporters and other segments of the business community were in distress and facing huge financial losses.