ISLAMABAD: In bid to curb illegal capital outflows, Federal Finance Minister Ishaq Dar has directed Federal Board of Revenue (FBR), State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) and Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) to prepare a comprehensive legislation.
The minister issued the directives, while addressing the cheque distribution ceremony to the deposit-holders of the defunct Innovative Investment Bank Limited (IIBL) at the SECP head office.
Dar said that recovery of written off loans should be part of the terms of reference (ToRs), which likely to be announced jointly by the government and opposition’s parliamentary committee in coming days. He said that the return of depositors money through recovery of IIBL’s written off loans indicates that the written off loans can be recovered.
Finance Minister invited the political opponents to sit with the government for working out a charter of economy to ensure sustainable development and economic growth. In the cheque distribution ceremony, Dar handed over cheques to the depositors of up to Rs10 million of the IIBL, which amounts to about Rs1.1 billion. He said he was impressed by the performance of IIBL, which managed to recover Rs 48 million loans that had been written-off by some individuals.
The minister said due to the collective efforts of public departments, Pakistan had become a macro economically stable country. “Pakistan is set to take off and it is just matter of time,” he said, adding that credible world institutions have termed Pakistan second choicest place for investment and forecast the country to be 18th biggest economies of the world by 2050.
However, a lot more still needs to be done, he said, adding that with concrete efforts, the dream of becoming 18th biggest economy could be materialised by even 2030.
The minister said the budget deficit was expected to remain 4.3 percent during the current fiscal year, which had witnessed a significant decrease from 8.8 percent three years ago. “Total foreign exchange reserves in the country during the current year were recorded at $21.1 billion, which were the highest in the country’s history.”
Ishaq Dar said the annual growth of revenue collection was about 3.3 percent before 2013 while during three years tenure of the current government, average annual growth rate of revenue collection was recorded at about 18 percent, which was result of various structural reforms the government had introduced in the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR).
He appreciated the extraordinary performance of SECP, saying, “My dream of making SECP an autonomous department and an effective organisation had now been fulfilled and due to the hard work of its Chairman Zafar Hijazi, the performance of the commission had improved significantly.”
Earlier, addressing on the occasion, SECP Chairman Zafar Hijazi informed the participants that out of total 109 depositors, 92 depositors were being paid full amount while the remaining 17 would get partial payment. He said SECP was determined to work for the welfare of small investors and depositors.
