KARACHI: Shahid Ismail Mangroria, Vice President, Karachi Chamber of Commerce & Industry (KCCI) expressed his displeasure on State of Pakistan’s announcement of bringing down the mark-up interest rate by mere 1% to 8% from previous mark-up interest rate of 9%.
Shahid Ismail Mangroria said; “although due to this deduction of merely 1% in mark-up interest rate has caused a reduction of Rs 330 Billion in our national debt and if we analyze it since March we have seen an overall deduction of 5.25% in mark-up rate. But we need more so that we can on level playing field our fierce competitors”.
Shahid Ismail, Chief executive officer of Premier Cables (Pvt.) Limited further said; “Siraj Kassam Teli Chairman Businessmen Group (BMG), President KCCI Agha Shahab Ahmed Khan and we office bearers of KCCI have requested many times to Prime Minister of Pakistan and even to Governor State Bank of Pakistan during his visit to Karachi Chamber about the higher rate of mark-up in Pakistan, which is not giving us a level playing field. We have requested again and again that we should be given a level playing field in accordance to one that are applied elsewhere in the region”.
“If we look around the region, many countries have brought down this upto 0% due to Covid19 pandemic, whereas some of them have their mark-up rates within the range of 3 to 5%. So keeping an eye around our neighboring countries, on behalf of KCCI, I would like to request Prime Minister of Pakistan and Governor State Bank of Pakistan to bring down the mark-up rate to 3 or 4%. This will give us a chance to compete against our competing countries and with that I can assure of the fact that with this reduction in mark-up interest rate, our industry, our trade and our commerce will grow and flourish immensely”, added Mr. Shahid Ismail.
On the concluding note he added; I would once again request Prime Minister of Pakistan and Governor State Bank of Pakistan to bring down the mark-up interest rate to 3 or 4%. Instead of announcing a reduction of further 1 or 2%, please bring it down 3 or 4%.
