The crisis surrounding Pakistan’s international trade shows no sign of easing, reports Bloomberg, with several major companies in the country having to halt or reduce the size of their operations because they do not have sufficient foreign exchange to pay for the goods inside containers.
That in turn has led to bottlenecks at the ports, with normal flows being radically disrupted.
Companies have also been running short of raw materials.
The Pakistan unit of Suzuki Motor Corp has suffered a temporary shutdown because parts shortages were persisting. Ghandhara Tyre & Rubber Co had to shut its plant from February 13th. It said that it was facing “immense hurdles towards importing raw materials and obtaining clearance of consignments from commercial banks.”
Pakistan’s foreign currency reserves have fallen to $3.19bn, meaning that the macro-economy is unable to fund imports. That has left thousands of containers of supplies, worth billions of dollars, at its ports.