LAHORE: Federal Minister for Finance Ishaq Dar has said the government was committed to bring the fiscal deficit from 8.8 per cent to 4 per cent in the next three to four years.
Addressing the participants of the 101st session of National Management College Lahore here, Ishaq Dar said the foremost challenge facing the government today was reducing the fiscal deficit, which was the mother of all evils.
“Similarly we are also going to reduce the public debt ratio from 63.9 per cent to 55 per cent in the coming three to three and half years”, he remarked.
The session was an interactive exercise to brief the participants on the budget making mechanism, fiscal policy and the overall outlook and performance of the government.
The participants from all service groups not only attended the session but also asked various questions to improve their understanding of the working of the country’s economy.
To a question asked about the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, the minister said Pakistan was proud to be among the founding members of China’s Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), but it did not in any way mean that its relation with Asian Development Bank (ADB), World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) would be affected.
These banks, he said, provided help as budgetary support and basically helped in project-oriented development. He said the AIIB would prove great help in building the infrastructure in Asia as well as in Pakistan.
The minister said the elimination of SRO culture in the next three years would help increase the tax revenue.
To another question, the minister said, “We want to introduce a fair system of taxation in the country, for this purpose we have built a Tax Reform Commission, we also want to broaden the tax base and make the system more equitable and are open to any suggestion given by the participants or the members of the civil society. As far as the scope of revenue generation is concerned, the provinces have more space to expand their collections as compared to the centre which has lesser channels.”
Answering another question on the recent sit-ins, the Finance Minister said the sit-ins had caused a great capital loss to the country. The payments due from 4th tranche of IMF, the issue of Sukuk and divestment of OGDCL caused a loss of 2.4 billion dollars to the nation. Stock market also plummeted.
Further, important visit from the head of a friendly country was postponed, he said, adding the confidence of the overseas investors was eroded and all this due to the irresponsible attitude of a group of people.
Concluding the session, the minister said, “Despite recent domestic setbacks, I remain optimistic and confident about the future. We are working on all deferred transactions.”
He said the government would meet all its targets and put the country on path of sustainable growth.
“We have suffered internally as well as externally. Goodwill created abroad during last 16 months has been weakened, but such state of affairs will not be allowed to go on,” he added.
