Staff Reporter
Islamabad
Former President ICCI Shahid Rasheed Butt on Friday said unnecessary promotion of the sugarcane crop and patronage of the influential sugar industry is damaging the economy.
In a statement he said that the policy of preferring sugarcane to cotton crop should be reversed immediately while cotton belt should be shielded from the onslaught of sugar millers.
Shahid Rasheed Butt said that sugar mills established in the cotton belt should be moved out to other locations to save the largest export earner and largest industrial employment provider sector of textiles.
Cotton crops help our country earn sizable foreign exchange and provide employment to millions while the sugar industry needs billions of subsidies to remain in the business which the country can ill afford.
Pakistan is producing more sugar than required but a heavy subsidy is required to export the surplus as it is more costly than the sugar available in the international market for which the poor are made to pay.
He noted that despite the reservations of lenders like IMF tax breaks worth billions are offered to influential people for which SRO are used.
