KARACHI: The president of Pakistan’s top trade body said on Wednesday that sit-in protests blocking highways in the southern Sindh province for the past six days are inflicting daily losses of $2 million in demurrages on traders, disrupting the country’s supply chain and hampering its exports.
Lawyers, civil society activists and nationalist parties have staged sit-in protests at the National Highway in Sindh since Friday. Protesters are demanding the federal government reverse its ambitious project that aims to build six canals at Indus River. The move has triggered protests in Sindh, where nationalist parties believe the initiative would cause water shortages for the province.
Television footage shows thousands of vehicles and containers with perishable and non-perishable items stranded at various points in Sukkur, Khairpur and Larkana districts of Sindh where hundreds have blocked the highway. The protest entered its sixth day on Wednesday.
“The traders are incurring more than $2 million daily losses in demurrages,” President of the Federation of Pakistan Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FPCCI) Atif Ikram Sheikh said in a statement.
The FPCCI president said over 12,000 vehicles, including 2,500 oil tankers, were unable to reach their destination due to road blockades on the highway.
Sheikh said Pakistan may lose more than $50 million because of a weeklong delay in the shipment of its textile and seafood exports to the European and Middle Eastern markets.
Abdul Aleem, chief executive of the Overseas Investor Chamber of Commerce and Industry (OICCI), said the protest has halted local trade and industrial activity. He said it has also paralyzed supply chains throughout the country, sending shockwaves to the national economy.
“Over 3,500 vehicles remain stranded near Sukkur, many carrying export consignments, perishable items, and critical industrial inputs,” Aleem said in a statement.
The OICCI represents more than 200 leading foreign investors and multinational firms operating in Pakistan.
The losses are a blow to Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s government, which says it is focused on getting rid of Pakistan’s prolonged macroeconomic crisis.
“Industries across provinces are facing shutdown risks due to raw materials stuck at Karachi Port, while exporters are missing delivery deadlines further damaging Pakistan’s credibility as a reliable trading partner and threatening future contracts,” Aleem explained.
Jawed Bilwani, president of the Karachi Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KCCI), criticized the government for neglecting the canals issue, which he said had damaged the entire country’s economy.
He said the highway in Sindh was a key route through which shipments traveled to Afghanistan and Central Asian countries.
“All the import and export activities have come to a halt,” Bilwani said. “The gates of the seaports (in Karachi) have been shut.”
Bilwani said he would write a letter to PM Sharif to invite his attention to the crisis.
“Pakistan will go bankrupt is this situation persisted for a long time,” he said. “The country will plunge into a balance of payment crisis and goods worth billions of rupees would perish.”
Pakistan desperately wants to increase its foreign exchange reserves, which have dropped to $10.6 billion as per latest figures. The cash-strapped nation is mainly relying on the International Monetary Fund’s loan disbursement to ensure the repayment of its soaring external debt obligations, which amount to $26 billion this year.
Syed Nazir Abbas Zaidi of the Oil Companies Advisory Council (OCAC) said as many as 1,000 lorries carrying petroleum products for Sindh and Punjab provinces were stuck due to the protests.
“This may disturb the supply chain in peak harvesting season,” Zaidi told Arab News.
