Islamabad
The Islamabad Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ICCI) on Tuesday urged the government for taking urgent measures to overcome trade deficit to achieve sustainable economic growth and development in the country.
Muhammad Shakeel Munir, President ICCI said that trade deficit of the country increased during first four months of the current fiscal year and urged the government to take urgent remedial measures to curb this trend as the increasing trade deficit would put more pressure on exchange rate and cause further depreciation in the value of rupee, said a news release.
Trade deficit, he said, had reached an all-time high of over US $ 37 billion in financial year 2018 creating multiple problems for the economy and the current government had brought it down with great efforts to around US $ 23 billion by 2020.
He said it was unfortunate that being an agricultural country, Pakistan was importing wheat, sugar, pulses and many other food items, which also contributed to the rising trade deficit. —APP
