KARACHI – Vice President of Pakistan Businesses Forum, Ahmad Jawad, has said trade bodies must alert the economic managers on once again rising cost of the dollar “as with devaluation, there is inflation. When there is inflation, your disposable income vanishes, which affects consumer behavior and purchasing power”.
Jawad said we must understand that depreciation of rupees means a burden on the economy. It increases the cost of debt servicing by both the private sector and the government.
It’s high time government to control the volatility of the rupee against the US dollar, and come up with policy reforms to control the depreciation of the rupee which is becoming more and more valueless as the industrial revival and economic growth is not possible without the stability of the local currency. “sharp depreciation of rupee shows that Pakistan is again moving towards a trade deficit regime, which might jack up the current account deficit yet again”.
PBF officials also suggested that the government should ask the State Bank of Pakistan to work out a mechanism with the help of NADRA to more facilitation through Roshan digital accounts especially in foreign currency for overseas Pakistanis with an ATM card facility.
“Government must announce measures to facilitate overseas Pakistanis while opening dollar account in Pakistan and give them a facility to transfer their amount through internet banking as well so that they should be encouraged more to place their foreign currency in Pakistani banks,” he underlined.
He said that currently, local banks were not giving even a single facility to overseas Pakistani on opening foreign currency account in Pakistan. Placing dollars in accounts with no facility discourages the expatriates to invest in our banking channels, he said.
In western countries, he cited, customers enjoy the facility that they can transfer their money anywhere in the world at will through internet banking or online transfer. He said it is high time for State Bank of Pakistan to simplify the procedures and facilitation for overseas Pakistanis.
“Overseas Pakistanis are among our national assets. They can play an important role in improving the country’s financial conditions through remittances and deposits,” he said, asserting that Pakistan could get 40% extra via foreign remittances as we closed in June 2021: if bottlenecks and challenges being faced by bank and money transfer exchanges were removed.
Jawad further mentioned that the condition of tax filer may also be removed for overseas Pakistanis to open normal bank account in foreign currency in any bank because they earn money internationally and pay their taxes in the country where they live.
