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ISLAMABAD : Furious businessmen say they have lost millions of dollars due to a government-imposed blockade to stop mass protests, which they said on Tuesday had hammered a further nail into the moribund economy. Traders accused the government of impounding thousands of containers and trailers across the country, which were used to seal off highways and the exits of main cities to stop activists from marching towards the capital.
Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani ordered an end to the crackdown on Monday after the government caved into protesters' demands to reinstate Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry who was sacked under emergency rule in 2007. "Owners charge Rs 7,000 a day for a container, thus it caused a loss of Rs 175 million," Majyd Aziz, a business leader based in the southern port city Karachi, told AFP. Losses from commodities, which should have been carried by the trailers and containers, also ran into millions of dollars, he said.
"They included perishable items, which have gone for good," said Aziz. "The trailers were carrying huge export consignments, which cannot be shipped on time, thus our exporters have faced cancellation orders from the buyers and suffered huge losses," Aziz said.
Experts said the government would lose billions of rupees in taxes on the goods that were not transported. "We calculate the government could have earned 15 billion rupees from tax collections on the goods that could not be transported through these unused trailers and containers," independent economist A.B. Shahid told AFP. He said that from Thursday, when the protests started in Karachi, to Monday, when the opposition called them off after exacting a government pledge to reinstate sacked judges, industrial activity in major industrial towns was halved.
"We estimate that during these five days of turmoil Pakistan's GDP lost at least Rs 50 billion (625 million dollars)," Shahid said. The blockade also delayed shipments travelling overland to the port in Karachi, causing losses to exporters, he said. Such losses in business would increase bad loans and amplify the country's economic woes, Shahid said. Shariq Vohra of the Karachi Chamber of Commerce and Industry also charged that the blockade stopped supplies of goods across the country. "The crackdown on the lawyers' long march disrupted supplies of day-to-day commodities from province to province," he said.
Copyright AFP (Agence France-Presse), 2009
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