KARACHI – President Pakistan Businessmen and Intellectuals Forum (PBIF), President All Karachi Industrial Alliance (AKIA), Senior Vice Chairman of the Businessmen Panel of FPCCI and former provincial minister, Mian Zahid Hussain on Monday said growth rate of all regional countries is improving except for Pakistan. Improving growth is reducing poverty in all regional economies but inflation and eroded buying power in Pakistan is resulting in poverty, health issues, stunted growth, and other serious issues, he said.
Talking to the business community, the veteran business leader that almost forty percent of the global children population with stunted growth lives in Pakistan which will a burden in the future.
The former minister noted that inequality in increasing globally and in Pakistan because the policymakers are more inclined towards the welfare of the wealthy which also reflect in their policies and budgets.
The majority of the countries are facing the concentration of wealth in few hands which if discouraged will improve the lives of the majority and trigger rapid growth. He said that distribution of wealth is not practiced anywhere in the world except for few welfare states while employing tools as poverty and unemployment to control majority has become a norm.
The business leader said that the rich and influential are as much visible in the society as poor but the tax administration prefer to milk poor to generate revenue. He noted that the allocation of Rs6 billion by the government to provide items of daily use on economical rates to masses through Utility Stores is a good move but the allocation is not sufficient.
The government should try to provide employment for which investment climate should be improved, he demanded.
