LAHORE: Lahore Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI) President Malik Tahir Javaid on Sunday emphasized the need for a result-oriented federal budget aimed at addressing the miseries of trade, industry and economy.
The LCCI president told APP here that federal budget was the most important document of any country as it set economic directions for the entire year. “It is important that budget for financial year 2018-19 should have doable suggestions of business community in its fold,” he added.
Pakistan was energy and water starved country and needed to make substantial investment for development of power sector infrastructure that was capable of meeting the growing needs of the economy, therefore, the government should ensure substantial amount of public investment first into generation, transmission and distribution infrastructure to bridge demand and supply gap, he suggested.
To a question, Malik Tahir said that to tackle circular debt on sustainable basis – ultimately Pakistan would have to ensure that the electricity power sector was efficient and competitive and this would require consistent structural and institutional reforms. In particular, removing subsidies and adherence to full cost recovery would have to be ensured, while tariffs should fully reflect normal profits. The sector’s huge debt overhang also needed to be eliminated on sustainable basis.
In view of substantial and untapped potential of alternative sources of energy, he proposed that five per cent of the allocated funds should be dedicated to development of bio-fuels, bio-mass and other renewable sources of energy. The technology was already available to produce energy by various resources such as Jatropha that was already being used to produce bio-diesel in a number of countries including India, Brazil, Philippines, etc.
He said that these plants could easily be grown on poor quality, waste or arid land which was abundantly available in various parts of the country such as Cholistan. He further stated that biomass including wood, dung, agriculture residues which was available at a very low cost in Pakistan could also be used for energy purposes.
Stating the importance of Kalabagh Dam, he observed, the project would give one million acre feet of water thus ensuring fiscal benefit of US $ 2 billion annually to the economy, and called for allocating funds for this vital project in the upcoming budget.
He also called for making tax collection mechanism more economically neutral, taxpayer-friendly, equitable, facilitative and supportive to generate healthy business activities. “Taxation is of course important source of revenue collection but tax policies must be based on the best international practices and universally accepted canons of taxation,” he opined. Moreover, he added, the taxes should be collected quarterly instead of every month and for that matter, all para-tariffs must be merged into the main tariffs. Similarly, there should be electronic communication between taxpayers and tax departments.
To a query about CPEC, he said that China Pakistan Economic Corridor projects would stimulate local economy by increasing the demand of locally manufactured goods and such increase in demand would not only allow full utilization of existing manufacturing capacity but also encourage manufacturers to enhance their capacity.
The Lahore Chamber’s President urged the government to take steps to control smuggling at the borders and Frontier Corps deployed there should be equipped with state-of-the-art technology and made them more vigilant enabling them to play their role more effectively in controlling the smuggling.
He suggested that duties on smuggle-pron goods should be reduced as it had been practiced successfully in many other countries.
He mentioned that Pakistan needed a long-term integrated export strategy for which the Federal Commerce Minister had taken encouraging steps recently to enhance the country’s exports. He said that removal of business climate challenges could help considerably in this regard.
