ICCI concerned over rising external debt and liabilities that have crossed $105 billion

Ahmed Hassan Moughal President, Rafat Farid Senior Vice
President and Iftikhar Anwar Sethi Vice President, Islamabad Chamber of
Commerce & Industry have expressed great concerns over the rising external
debt and liabilities of the country that have surpassed $105 billion by the
end of March 2019 and called upon the government to take urgent measures to
cope with this serious issue as rising foreign debts would further weaken
our economy and increase poverty and unemployment in the country. They said
that for that successive governments burdened Pakistan with more debt
instead of making its economy stronger while the current government was
also following the same path that would bring more troubles for business
sector and the common man.

Ahmed Hassan Moughal said that with prudent policies and better economic
management, Turkey had got rid of IMF debts in May 2013, but it was
unfortunate that Pakistan was still depending on IMF for running its
economy which was not a good sign for our posterity. He said that business
community and the Pakistani nation has always paid heavy price for IMF
bailout packages as whenever Pakistan obtained loan from IMF, its
conditions translated into increase in the prices of electricity, gas and
POL products along with tight monetary policy. These measures always
brought great inflation to the common man and increased cost of doing
business in the country.

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