Business leader and former president of Islamabad Chamber Shahid Rashid Butt on
Friday said elites exist in every country of the world. Countries where they are kept under
control prosper and the countries where they are left unchecked become beggars.
The elites of developed countries take cheap loans and concessions to increase production
and exports, while the majority of our incompetent elites have nothing in focus but
lucrative property business.
Shahid Rasheed Butt said in a statement issued here today that the privileged class of
businessmen in developed countries competes with other countries in the global market
while our elites hate competition and keep licking the country's resources like termites.
The business leader noted that the real estate sector has nothing to do with the
development of the country's economy, but it is deliberately kept very profitable in
Pakistan to promote the elite.
Due to unbelievable profits in the real-estate sector, it attracts most of the capital, and the
productive sector, which provides employment and is a major source of income and
foreign exchange earnings is left in a lurch, he observed.
Pakistan will not be able to develop and will always be in need of loans until the property
sector is properly taxed.
How can a country prosper where the labour earns more foreign exchange than exporters
who get billions of dollars of subsidies, he questioned.
According to an American organization, the number of billionaires in India is 169 with
known assets of 750 billion dollars, while we have been begging the IMF for seven
months for one billion dollars, he informed.
Mr. Butt said that there is no significant difference between the culture of Pakistan and
India, but there is a huge difference in policies which has made it the fifth-largest
economic power in the world.
The journey of the progress of neighbouring countries and our decline continues for
decades.
