ISLAMABAD: National Assembly has approved the Federal Budget for financial year 2017-18 Rs. 4.75 trillion on Tuesday in the absence of members of the opposition. This is the first time that a finance bill has been passed in Pakistan without the inclusion of the opposition in the assembly.
Since the opposition was not present during the proceedings, all cut motions against the bill were dropped. Federal government has removed the sales tax on the import of petrol diesel engine 3 to 36 horse power and reduce the customs duty from 20 to 3 percent on the parts of peter engine. Federal government has also further reduce the tax rate on five export oriented sectors from 2 to 1 percent in the light of the proposals of FPCCI and APTMA.
On Senate recommendations the batteries whole sellers and dealers will be exempted from 0.2 and 0.5 percent withholding tax. Sales tax rate has been reduced from 17 to 5 percent on LNG for feed gas. On the import of permanent magnets for DC fans custom duty has been abolished.
Concluding the discussion session on the budget, Finance Minister Ishaq Dar noted that out of the 276 recommendations made by the Senate, 75 had been partially or wholly approved while 137 recommendations had been sent to the planning commission. The finance minister exclaimed that some elements had suggested that the budget held no worth without a date set for the NFC award. “The government wishes the early completion of the NFC award… however, the award is being delayed by the provinces,” he alleged. Dar asserted that the impression of increased foreign loans was incorrect and that in the coming year the government would continue to battle terrorism. “We have allotted Rs90 billion for fighting extremism,” Dar stated.
The National Assemble approved Rs3.45tr for ministries and divisions during the session. This included the approval of Rs928.58bn for the ministry of defence, Rs107.02bn for the interior ministry, Rs11.5bn for the aviation division, Rs14.8bn for the establishment division, Rs51.16bn for the cabinet division and Rs5.11bn for the defence production division.
