LAHORE: Finance Minister Ishaq Dar has directed the Federal Board of Revenue to further gear up its efforts to achieve the revised revenue collection target of 2,345 billion rupees set for the current fiscal year.
Addressing the conference of FBR officials, he was confident that the revenue body has the capacity to achieve the revenue target. 1,574 billion rupees have been collected in the first nine months as compared to 1352 billion rupees during the corresponding period last year. This shows increase of 16.4 per cent growth in revenue collection. However, much more needs to be done to achieve the target.
The Finance Minister appreciated the performance of FBR in revenue collection as 214 billion rupees were collected in the month of March. From now onwards FBR will have to collect an average 257 billion rupees a month to achieve the revenue collection target.
Ishaq Dar said achieving the revenue target is imperative to develop programs for future of the country. He said that the present government has doubled expenditures on the welfare of poor. “The expenditures on the poor segments have been enhanced from forty billion rupees to seventy five billion rupees,” Dar added.
He said that the economic indicators are showing positive trends and the same have been endorsed by the international financial institutions. GDP has witnessed growth while the inflation level has also come down. The appreciation of Pakistani rupee has reduced our debt by seven hundred to eight hundred billion rupees, Dar claimed.
The finance minister said that the country’s entry into the international bond market after seven years was a success story and our bond oversubscribed many times.
Rejecting media reports that the government has decided not to increase the salaries of public sector employees in the next budget, Ishaq Dar categorically stated that the decision in this regard will be taken keeping in view the fiscal space and inflation level.
