High interest rates pushing industrial sector to grinding halt.

KARACHI -- President Pakistan Businessmen and Intellectuals Forum (PBIF), President All Karachi Industrial Alliance (AKIA), Senior Vice Chairman of the Businessmen Panel of FPCCI and former provincial minister, Mian Zahid Hussain on Monday said improved economic activities and any relief to masses is not possible unless fundamental changes are made in some policies including interest rates which has led to the economic slowdown.

The World Bank has estimated a growth rate of 2.4 percent for Pakistan in 2020 while is lower than all the regional countries as the growth rate if Afghanistan will be 3 percent, Sri Lanka 3.3 percent, Maldives 5.5 percent, Nepal 6.4 percent, India 6.9 percent while the GDP growth rate of Bangladesh and Bhutan will remain about seven percent.

Talking to the business community, the veteran business leader informed that our growth rate will hover around 3 percent in 2021 while the rest of the regional economies will grow further which means that...