Acting president Karachi Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KCCI) Khurram Shahzad has opposed the reported recommendation to declare Friday as weekly holiday and demanded it should immediately be discarded. "The decision-makers must come forward to clarify these rumours which have triggered a lot of anxiety among people from all walks of life and the business and industrial community of Pakistan, in particular," he said, referring to widespread rumours being disseminated through social media about weekly government off on Friday.

He cautioned that any move to shift weekly holiday from Sunday to Friday would be resisted and it should not be done as it would completely cut-off Pakistan from many western countries around the world for three-and-a-half consecutive days. "The weekly off on Friday instead of Sunday would prove detrimental for the country's economy and the government will not be able to achieve numerous goals set to pull the economy out of crises," Khurram Shahzad said, adding that it would terribly hurt the exports to major destinations in Europe, United States and other western and far eastern countries where Saturday and Sunday are usually observed as weekly holidays.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2019