Karachi   -  The All Pakistan Newspapers Society has expressed its profound gratitude to Prime Minister Imran Khan who, on the request of the APNS, issued directives to the ministries concerned for clearing the outstanding dues of the print media.

“It hopes that this will enable the media houses to brave the liquidity crunch faced by the industry,” said APNS.

APNS President Hameed Haroon and Secretary General Sarmad Ali said that in the meeting with executive committee of the APNS held at Islamabad, the prime minister was apprised of the liquidity crunch faced by newspaper industry mainly due to non-payment of their dues relating to federal government advertisements released during the previous governments. The governments of People’s Party and Muslim League-N had not cleared the dues despite various requests on different pretexts which resulted in financial crisis in the media industry. The prime minister had very kindly assured that the dues will be cleared shortly and in this regard, has now directed the ministries concerned to clear the dues at the earliest.

The APNS office-bearers have stated that the assurances and directives of the prime minister will be implemented on priority basis by the Ministry of Information and Ministry of Finance and the dues pertaining to the period 2008-2013 and 2013-2018 will be cleared without further delay.