The Chairman of National Business Group Pakistan, the President of the Pakistan Businessmen and Intellectuals Forum, the President of All Karachi Industrial Alliance, the Chairman of the FPCCI Advisory Board, and the President and former provincial minister, Mian Zahid Hussain, said on Tuesday that despite promises of billions of dollars of investment by friendly countries, no practical results are visible.
He said the local business community prefers to invest in its own country, mainly because of electricity and gas prices, high bank markups, a smarkupscial system, and a law-and-order situation.
Mian Zahid Hussain said that further improvement of the investment environment is necessary to increase the confidence of foreign and local investors and boost the economy rapidly.
Talking to the business community, the veteran business leader said that the business environment is expected to improve in the next two months, which will increase foreign and local investment. If this expectation is fulfilled, the growth rate will be able to exceed three percent in the next few years.
Mian Zahid Hussain said that the International Monetary Fund recently predicted that Pakistan’s growth rate would be up to three percent this year. At the same time, the same organization had estimated it to be 3.2 percent earlier, which shows its disappointment with Pakistan.
The business leader said that global concern is increasing due to the expected policies of the United States. The economic slowdown in Europe and the new US President’s announcements to increase revenue from exports from China and other countries may open up possibilities for promoting Pakistani exports, for which practical steps are needed.
The country’s law and order situation is also worrisome. The government cannot increase imports indiscriminately, so increasing the growth rate through imports is not an option.
Mian Zahid Hussain said that the tax system has not improved for 77 years, and it targets the salaried class and low-income people. So, how can things move forward?
Even now, about seventy per cent of taxes are indirect, which has burdened the people. According to the FBR chairman, the top five per cent of the wealthiest people in the country are liable for trillions of rupees in taxes.
He asked how the country could run because Pakistan’s tax-to-GDP ratio is not even half that of Mongolia, Mozambique, and Namibia. Instead of trying new experiments, the FBR should completely digitalize the economy so taxes can be collected without scaring the taxpayers.
Mian Zahid Hussain added that the government has made many reforms and improved things greatly, the results of which are also coming out. However, investors will be interested only when they are satisfied with the reform process.
Investors fear losses if the necessary reforms remain slow. If they are not satisfied, he warned that the government’s plan to increase the growth rate to six percent and the size of the country’s economy to $1 trillion would fail.