THE FPCCI is rightly concerned over the burgeoning trade deficit that has widened by 18.1pc to $7.1bn in the first two months of the current fiscal year due to growing imports and stagnating exports. The country’s apex trade body has described the rising cost of doing business as a binding constraint on exports. A policy rate above regional rivals, costly and unreliable energy supply, and higher taxes on petrol are structural costs that show up directly in the price of exporters. This explains a good part of why our exports keep losing shelf space to competitors who face none of these burdens. But it is not the........

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