LCCI seeks steps to curtail increase in dollar value

LAHORE: The Lahore Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI) has urged the government to take measures for curtailing increase in dollar to reduce pressure on the foreign exchange reserves, a statement said on Monday.

Speaking at an interactive session with the Lahore Economic Journalists Association (LEJA) office-bearers, LCCI president Mian Nauman Kabir suggested doing trade in local currencies to end reliance on the dollar.

He said the initiative would help decrease trade deficit, the major cause of the rupee devaluation, adding that the currency swap agreements with Russia and other regional countries would help make the local currency strong.

The rupee devaluation has made imported raw materials for the industrial sector more costly, the LCCI official said, adding that bilateral trade volume with China alone was over $13 billion.

“[The] currency swap agreements with the regional countries, particularly with China, will significantly reduce [the] pressure on [the] foreign exchange reserves,” he said.

“We need to strengthen [the] SMEs sector for enhancing exports,” Kabir said, adding that the major issue being faced by the SMEs was the lack of access to finance.

“[The] SMEs have only 6 per cent share of the total credit given to the private sector,” he said and called for going for renewable energy resources to reduce dependence on costly electricity produced from imported fuel.

He also demanded making price control mechanism effective for checking inflation.

LCCI senior vice president Mian Rehman Aziz Chan and vice president Haris Ateeq called for a national economic policy to cope with the economic challenges, saying that all the stakeholders should be taken on board on this issue.

They said the Covid-19 pandemic has posed serious challenges for the economies around the globe and urged the government to take measures for documentation of the economy.

The LCCI office-bearers said the non-traditional sectors, particularly pharmaceutical, engineering and halal food should be focused to give a quantum jump to the exports, adding that the product and market diversification is the need of the hour.

LEJA president Sudhir Chaudhry also spoke on the occasion.