The Karachi Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KCCI), along with seven industrial town associations and textile exporter groups, has called on the government to withdraw the retrospective gas levy imposed on industries, warning it could force factory closures, halt exports, and increase import dependence.
Speaking at a joint press conference on Thursday, business leaders urged the prime minister and the ministers for petroleum and power to immediately suspend the levy that has raised gas bills severalfold over the past four months.
They said the retrospective surcharge has inflated bills from millions to tens of millions of rupees, creating an unsustainable financial burden for industrial consumers.
Businessmen Group (BMG) Chairman Zubair Motiwala, addressing the event via video link, recalled that during Pervez Musharraf’s tenure, industries were encouraged to install captive power plants (CPPs) with the assurance of continuous gas supply.
He said the recent hike in gas tariffs and additional levies had rendered those plants uneconomical, wasting billions of rupees in investments.
Motiwala said the new levy of Rs791 per million British thermal units (mmBtu) on CPPs, imposed on the justification of a cost differential with grid electricity, was unjustified. “No such differential actually exists,” he added.
He further stated that the rising cost of doing business has eroded Pakistan’s competitiveness against regional economies such as India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, China, Cambodia, and Vietnam. “When energy costs are higher than Bangladesh’s, how can we compete? Give us the same cost structure—if we fail, hold us accountable,” he remarked.
Industrial representatives warned that without government intervention, the energy pricing policy could cripple production, threaten jobs, and undermine Pakistan’s export-led sectors.
