KARACHI ( Web News )
Gallup Pakistan has released its 2nd Quarter 2021 Business Confidence Survey (BCS) Report. The report is based on a systematic survey of business community across all 4 provinces of the country with over 600 statistically chosen businesses from all over Pakistan. Gallup BCS has been running for over 2 years now and provides a pulse of the business community in Pakistan especially the small businesses which are usually left out from many data points the government gathers.
Two strands of Gallup Business Confidence Survey in Q2 remain in the positive while one falls towards the negative side, showing more businesses pose a confidence in the future than in the present. Though the third strand representing the confidence in the direction of the country has increased significantly, the current business index score has fallen considerably. This shows that recovery may have hit a stump and is slowing down. In order to go beyond just recovering from COVID-19 and to reach galloping speed, business community demands structural changes in government taxation, red tape, regulations and there seems to be pessimism about whether this is really happening.
Comparison of findings from Q4 2020 show that inflation still remains to be a steady problem within the current business scenario as well in Q2 2021. 3 in 10 businesses (32%) posit that inflation is the problem they want government to solve the most. Coupled with this, most businesses also claimed that government needs to deal with problems caused by coronavirus and the subsequent lockdowns on an urgent basis. Gallup would therefore recommend that government look into these issues while framing policies for small businesses within Pakistan.
With around 2 in 5 businesses (42%) reporting that they have less workers now working for them as compared to same month last year, it is obvious that there is a huge increase in unemployed population in the country. Again, with improving large scale business numbers, we see a distortion that is bringing false sense of confidence about the economy. The reality of the small business and their employee remains quite negative.
This edition we asked businesses about the incidence of load shedding and sadly a huge 7 in 10 businesses report that load shedding is a huge problem for them. 57% of businesses reported experiencing load-shedding on the day survey was conducted with them, with most people experiencing it for 3 hours per day
As one of the largest utility problems that Pakistan faces, load shedding is a deep-seated issue plaguing the business environment in Pakistan. Despite much lip service, the position on the ground for the local businesses remains the same & the government must take immediate measures to deal with the electricity crises within Pakistan