Chairman Syed Muhammad Asim Shah said that the country's rate of 35.4% is touching its limits and the business and industrial sectors in Pakistan are having to bear the brunt of it. Units are closing down day by day and small and medium scale exporters are almost destroyed.
Due to lack of financial resources, there is a severe shortage of raw materials and no source of financing is available. Textile exporters operate at 8% to 7% business profit if 21% interest rate is unviable for the business sector.
Chairman APBUMA said that the government is relentlessly increasing the interest rate to meet the conditions of the IMF.
Syed Mohammad Asim Shah said that the policy of interest rate increase is adopted to control the money supply at the country level so that the demand can be reduced due to lack of capital and the supply can be increased. But it is a pity that the policy makers are hitting the local demand and supply and the export sector with a single stick.
A preferential financing policy is always adopted to promote exports in the export sector so that the exchange rate can be stabilized by obtaining foreign exchange and unemployment can be kept under control by the operation of the industry. % was available at the rate which has now increased to 18% and it is not possible to export at this rate. As evidenced by the continuous decline in exporters for the past several months, textile exports have decreased by 21% in March 2023 compared to the previous year and in the 9 months of the current year have decreased from $14.23 billion last year to $12.50 billion. are left
Syed Mohammad Asim Shah requested the government to immediately reduce the markup rate for the export sector in the current year. He further requested that markup policy of export sector and local industry should be set separately.