MULTAN, Aug 19: Economists, agriculturalists and industrialists of southern Punjab held former president Musharraf responsible for damaging the economy and said that the situation could deteriorate further if his faulty policies continue in future.

Chairman Economics department of Bahawalpur Islamia University Professor Dr Karamat Ali said that there were scant chances that the coalition government would dare to change the economic policies of the outgoing regime.

He said that the increasing trend in prices of oil and food at the international level had impacted economy of almost every country but the countries with stable economic conditions were affected less as compared to those with weak economy.

The resignation of Musharraf does not mean that the country has become politically stable. The resignation would not help end the economic crisis until political stability stays on a permanent basis, he added.

He said that the government would hardly succeed in changing the basic tenets of the economy such as privatisation, deregulation and free market economy, while it would prefer to bring changes in policies at the lower level.

He said that the government should take steps to increase the volume of exports and decrease imports that would help in the strengthening of rupee value.

Khawaja Muhammad Shoaib of Farmers Vision Forum said that the agricultural policies during the early three years rule of the former president were impressive but he failed to maintain his policies after coming under the influence of the industrial community.

He said that if the government wanted any improvement in the agriculture sector then it should frame farmers-friendly policies.

President of Multan Industrial Estate Iqbal Hassan said that it would be a tough job for the government to arrest the falling trend in economy, which was the result of wrong policies of Shaukat Aziz and Pervez Musharraf.

He said that it was the proof of their wrong policies that the size of export was $18.5 billion against the imports of $40 billion in last year’s budget.

He said that after signing free trade agreement with China the government was going to ink same agreement with India, while the fact is that the country has nothing to export except textile products.