Search
Close this search box.

Impossible to run the country without loans

KARACHI: Chairman of National Business Group Pakistan, President Pakistan Businessmen and Intellectuals Forum, and All Karachi Industrial Alliance, and former provincial minister Mian Zahid Hussain on Monday said it has become impossible to run the country without new loans.

Pakistan cannot get cheap loans from the international market unless it complies with all the IMF conditions, he said.

Mian Zahid Hussain said that withdrawing tax exemptions and increasing tax on certain items has become necessary but essential items should have been spared to protect the masses.

Talking to the business community, the veteran business leader said that Pakistan must repay loans worth 12 billion dollars this year as the mini-budget is being objected but no solution is being given by the critics.

He noted that it has become necessary to swallow this bitter pill, otherwise the country will default.

Mian Zahid Hussain further said that it was wrong to impose a tax on essential items which should be reconsidered. The imposition of a 17% sales tax on cotton would affect the textile industry while the imposition of a 17% sales tax on the solar energy sector would also hit the efforts for the development of alternative energy in the country.