‘Small shopkeepers are suffering the most due to coronavirus lockdown’

Shopkeepers, especially those who are earning their bread by running small shops, are the most affected financially because of the country-wide lockdown, said Railways Minister Sheikh Rasheed.

“Small-scale shop keepers are dying of debts. They don’t generally own shops and buy daily items on loan,” the federal minister said while speaking on SAMAA TV’s programme Naya Din on Tuesday.

“Markets are filled with professional beggars but it is these safaid posh [white collar] people who are in genuine need, but can’t be reached.”

He was in favour of opening those manufacturing units whose products are being sold at the shops that have been reopened. “If tailors are allowed to resume work, textile manufacturing units shall also be reopened. They are facing huge financial losses,” the minister said.

Rasheed believes the developed countries are only battling the coronavirus pandemic but Pakistan has to do both, stabilise the economy and contain the virus outbreak.

He was of the view that this is the time when industrialists should come to the aid of their workers.

from coronavirus – SAMAA https://ift.tt/3eNhzPA