North Karachi Association of Trade & Industry (NKATI), has urged Government to protect worker’s jobs and save from starvation them by providing soft loans to export-oriented industries. In an appeal to Govt, Capt. A Moiz Khan, patron in chief and president Nasim Akhtar said that domestic industries were lockdown before coronavirus prevention lockdown because the USA and Europe had already been lockdown due to the pestilence of the coronavirus, which stopped export activities and canceled most of the export orders while foreign buyers are refusing to take delivery due to lockdown in their countries. NKATI leaders requested the government to protect the exportoriented industries from disaster, said that the industries are still shut down due to lockdown and did not know what the situation would be in the next 3 weeks, hence export oriented industries, especially textile industry, need the help of the government to maintain their survival. “Due to shut down of industries, how will industrialists pay salaries to workers as industries already suffering from severe financial hardship”? NKATI leaders pointed out. They added that the industrialists have arranged the salaries of March, 2020 for the workers, but if April, 2020 and then the lockdown period is extended then it will be very difficult for the workers to pay them salaries. NKATI leaders requested the government to defer SESSI & EOBI payments for 6 months and the government should pay this contribution amount to SESSI & EOBI for the welfare of the workers. “The government should help the industrialist community to protect workers and their families from starvation and protect worker’s jobs by providing soft loans to exportoriented industries”, NKATI leaders demanded. Referring the example of neighboring country Bangladesh, Capt. A Moiz Khan and Nasim Akhtar said that Govt of Bangladesh is going to pay salaries of all workers and staff for April, May and June 2020, in the form of a soft loan, which payable over 2 years at 2% interest rate with a 6 months moratorium. NKATI leaders appealed that, like Bangladesh, the Govt of Pakistan should also provide soft loans to export-oriented industries so that industries could fight their survival and salaries may be paid to workers on time, otherwise, after the end of lockdown period, production activities in industries will be extremely difficult to fully restore, resulting in unemployment flooding, which will have a very negative impact on domestic exports.—DNA
