SIALKOT, July 24: The unending power loadshedding for long hours is hitting badly the trade and commerce in Sialkot.

Sialkot Chamber of Commerce and Industry’s departmental committee chairman on Wapda Mian Muhammad Anwar said this while talking to reporters here on Monday.

He claimed that frequent power outages during the last one month had so far caused loss of 80 per cent business. Foreign customers had cancelled most of import orders they placed to local exporters who had miserably failed in dispatching their consignments in time due to eight to 10 hours of power suspension every day.

Majority of factories and industrial units were forced to work in a single shift, as loadshedding had become a real nightmare for the business community.

The single shift, he said, had also rendered thousands of daily-wage workers jobless.

Mian Anwar said the worst-sufferer among the export-oriented industries were sports goods, leather goods, surgical instruments and leather gloves manufacturing industries.

Surgical Instruments Manufacturers Association (SIMA) chairman Naeem Anwar Qureshi claimed that 16 to 18 hours long daily power suspension was causing heavy financial losses to exporters.

Most of the total 5,000 small and big industrial units in Sialkot had been closed due to loadshedding.

In Daska as well, the unscheduled power suspension had affected badly the farm machinery manufacturing industry, a good number of owners had no option but to close their units to save them from further losses.

Daska Engineering and Industrial Association’s information secretary Shahid Nadeem Mughal strongly criticised Gepco officials for resorting to long hours of electricity shutdown.

Talking to reporters, SCCI president Dr Nouman Idrees Butt, SIMA chairman Naeem Anwar Qureshi, Pakistan Sports Goods Manufacturers & Exporters Association (PSGMEA) chairman Arif Mehmood Sheikh, Pakistan Gloves Manufacturers & Exporters Association (PGMEA) chairman Dr Shumail Saeed Barlas, former central PRGMEA chairman Ejaz A. Khokhar and Markazi Anjuman Tajran president Ghulam Mujtaba Mehar expressed their grave concern over heavy financial losses the business community was suffering owing to outages.

They have urged the federal government to take some urgent measures to look up the situation and save the business community suffering from further losses.

Meanwhile, the intermittent electricity suspension has forced the Sialkot business community to look towards the adoption of the solar energy system in their factories.

Giving vent to his disquiet over the long hours of power shutdowns, District Nazim Muhammad Akmal Cheema directed Gepco officials to take every step to improve the situation.