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Trade, industry suffer Rs100b losses in a week

KARACHI — Losses to the trade, industry and damage to the public and private property due to strikes and shutdowns of industrial units in Karachi has been estimated at more than Rs100 billion ($1.1 billion), said traders and industrialists.

Only on Friday while it was a national holiday and all the industrial units were closed, five banks were set blaze and their ATMs looted, five cinema houses torched, dozens of police and public vehicles destroyed and scores of shops and buildings damaged by the unruly agitators in Karachi.

During the week the industrial output was severely affected as only three working days were possible due to strikes on Wednesday and Friday and due to the non-supply of gas and electricity to the industrial units of the city from Saturday to Monday.

Karachi Chamber of Commerce and Industry President Mian Abrar Ahmed told the media that trade, industrial production and revenue losses in the city are around Rs15 billion per day.

Meanwhile, the city operators of American franchise KFC rubbished the reports by the US media that it was closing down its operations in Karachi in the wake of country-wide anti-American protests over a blasphemous film made by rogue American Christians.

“The report in American media is totally baseless. There is absolutely no truth in the news. We are operating our franchise business with a complete Pakistani investment,” said CEO Cupola Pakistan, Rafiq Rangoonwala, the owners of the KFC Pakistan operations.

news@khaleejtimes.com