KARACHI: Chairman of National Business Group Pakistan, President Pakistan Businessmen and Intellectuals Forum, and All Karachi Industrial Alliance, and former provincial minister Mian Zahid Hussain on Wednesday expressed concern over exchange rate erosion terming it damaging for the economy.
The rupee is weakening despite improved exports and remittances which is not good for the economy as the budget was planned to keep in mind the value of a dollar at Rs153 which has now climbed to Rs160, he said.
Mian Zahid Hussain said that the rise of the dollar will hit key budgetary projections, increase interest payments and make almost everything costly.
Talking to the business community, the veteran business leader said that the weak rupee is making petrol, diesel, LNG, edible oil, wheat, sugar, pulses and many other things costly which in turn will collide with buying power of masses.
If the government opt to subsidize a few things, it will increase the budget deficit while the weak rupee is also contributing to high price and low imports of raw material and machinery used to manufacture export items.
