ISLAMABAD, Jan 4: Consumer Rights Commission of Pakistan (CRCP) has expressed serious concern over the reduction of profit rates on various national savings schemes being run in the country.

In a statement issued here on Saturday, the secretary general Consumer Rights Commission of Pakistan, Mian Abrar Hafeez, said the reduction would not only create sense of insecurity among people intending to invest in saving schemes, but also add to the number of poor.

The real return on savings schemes is very low and insufficient for financial sustainability of small investors, he added.

“The reduction will not apply to the existing depositors of the schemes, but it will undoubtedly affect the pensioners, salaried class and small savers, who will invest in the schemes on and after January 1, 2003.”

The secretary general said saving schemes of the government had provided financial sustainability to the poor. People invest in these schemes despite low profits offered as compared to private saving schemes, he added.

The government has reduced the rates of return and fixed them at 8.67 per cent, 9.12 per cent, 10.03 per cent and five per cent a year for Special Savings Certificates, Defence Savings Certificates, Special Savings Accounts and Savings Accounts respectively.