LAHORE, Feb 24: The Lahore Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI) has called upon the leadership of newly-elected political parties to look into the fast increasing trade deficit which has added up to 7.51 billion dollars in the first seven months of the current fiscal year owing to huge import of goods and services.

Chamber President Muhammad Ali Mian said in a statement that an analysis by the LCCI had revealed that high global prices were not the only reason for the increase in import bill.

He said other factors included decline in productivity of domestic industrial sector which had failed to keep pace with the growing demands of consumers.

The LCCI president pointed out that the food import bill alone was likely to cross dollar four billion this year which could have been easily avoided in an agricultural country like Pakistan by facilitating the farmers through quality inputs at reasonable rates.

The country, he said, could have easily achieved a double-digit growth in agriculture with adequate support through provincial agriculture departments.

He said that industries were under pressure due to various reasons, including under-invoicing and mis-declarations in import of finished goods that had been marginalizing the local industries producing similar goods.

The deepening energy crisis has also impacted the capability of local manufacturers to produce the goods for meeting domestic requirements.

Mr Ali Mian said the low governance level had also increased the cost of doing business for the domestic industry. The lopsided government policies of shielding the multinational companies from local corrupt practices had also contributed to the decline in domestic production.