ISLAMABAD: The business community on Saturday announced its relief over Prime Minister (PM) Imran Khan’s announcement to lift the countrywide lockdown in phases as well as reopening of all construction related industries and shopping centres for five days in a week.
According to the details, Islamabad Chamber of Commerce & Industry (ICCI) President Muhammad Ahmed Waheed while giving a statement on the government’s decision on Saturday said that the move would help businesses and industrial units to revive activities and play a role in reducing the miseries of jobless labour by providing them with a chance to earn some wages.
He said that due to continuous lockdown, the economy was getting weak day by day, which was not viable for a developing country like Pakistan.
The ICCI president said the government had played its part and now it was the business community’s responsibility to take all required precautionary measures to curb the spread of Covid-19 and strengthen the government’s hands in combating this deadly virus.
Further, lauding the government’s launch of Secured Transactions Registry (STR) to facilitate micro, small and medium enterprises in getting access to financial services as a positive move, the ICCI president stated that Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs), which play a vital role in the economic development of the country, were facing problems in accessing funds due to which their share in total lending of banks was just 6 per cent and hoped that Secured Transaction Registry (STR) would pave way for better growth of the SME sector by facilitating it in accessing finance.
The ICCI president said that many SMEs have suffered huge losses on investments made on goods or services on account of cancellation of orders due to Covid-19 and urged the government to compensate them by providing a relief package.
He said that SBP has introduced a temporary refinance scheme for payment of wages and salaries of workers, however, banks were demanding guarantees/collateral from SMEs for availing this scheme.
“Due to Covid-19, businesses have already suffered huge losses and providing collateral for them in this tough time was difficult. The government should consider waiving off the condition of collaterals for availing said scheme by the businesses,” he added.
He also said that many industrial units had taken loans from banks for business expansion, but due to closure of manufacturing activities, it has become difficult for them to pay back loans with markup.
He demanded that government should defer their loans with mark up for six months to ease their problems.
