Pakistan plans to curtail its army expenditure in the coming fiscal year

The army spokesman, Major-General Athar Abbas, has told the press reporters that Pakistan anticipates lowering down its extensive military expenditure for the coming fiscal year. The Pakistan army eats up 16 per
cent of the state’s annual budget every year and is hoping to lower its costs in the near future to help the cash-strapped conditions in the country.

Pakistan army uses almost $5 billion from the annual budget every fiscal, reviled Athar Abbas on the sidelines of a conference in Tangier, Morocco, on Saturday.

“That’s the equivalent of 16 per cent of the state’s budget,” said Athar. “Hopefully not because for about five years, the military budget remained at between 13 per cent and 14 per cent. It was increased only this year because
of the environment of security, and a lot of things that was required by the paramilitary in particular. I don’t see the military expenditure taking in more than $5billion (in the next fiscal year).”

With militancy campaigns diminishing in the Northern Waziristan region, it is anticipated that army expenditure might go down for the next year. Pakistan Army has been engaged with a number of Taliban militant groups in the Northern
areas of the country since past few years and has finally gained control of most of the region till date.

The fiscal year of Pakistan government runs from 1^st of July to the end of June next year. The countries budget targets a deficit of 4 per cent of GDP (Gross Domestic Product) for 2011-12, with an economic growth of
4.2 per cent.

The army spokesman still believes that the funds allocated for the armed forces are relatively smaller and might be insufficient in the future.

“There is a lot of scope of enhancing the revenues of the government. If they go up by 70 or 80 per cent the military budget will boil down to 10 per cent,” Athar said

Pakistan has the world’s lowest tax-to-GDP ratio, reaching just 10 per cent, and the country’s growth perspectives strongly depend on foreign finds and loans.

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Posted by Farhan Hameed on Nov 21 2011. Filed under Business, Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry