Incentives for business community in next budget asserts Abdul Hafeez Shaikh

Incentives for business community in next budget asserts Abdul Hafeez Shaikh

Thursday, May 17, 2012: Dr Abdul Hafeez Shaikh, Federal Finance Minister, has said that the government is considering giving incentives to the business community and people to achieve economic stability in the next budget.

The finance minister further said that the government had no plans to formulate a special budget keeping in view the upcoming elections. “Budget will be prepared in such a way that present economic policies will be continued.”

“The government will reduce customs duty and eliminate federal excise duty from some more items,” Shaikh said, adding focus would be on achieving economic stability to enhance growth.

“We are asking the US, European Union and neighbouring countries to open their markets for Pakistani products and incentives will be given in customs duty to increase trade,” he said. “We also plan to enhance allocation for the
public sector development programme (PSDP) in the budget.”

He pointed out that austerity measures would be taken to cut expenditures and reduce borrowing from banks so that the private sector could get loans for investment in business. “The tax system will be improved to bring more under
the tax net.”

He declared that salaries of government employees would be increased in line with inflation and a special programme would be launched to provide employment to 100,000 youth.

The Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP) would also be continued to provide aid to the vulnerable people of society.

Speaking on the occasion, Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) Chairman Mumtaz Haider Rizvi said tax collection had increased by 26% in 10 months of the current fiscal year compared to the corresponding period of last year. “Tax-to-GDP
ratio may go up to 10.3% in the year,” he hoped, and rejected allegations of poor economic performance.

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Posted by Wajahat Javed on May 18 2012. Filed under Business, Pakistan. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry