Federal Budget 2021-22 to be presented in NA today

As per details, the Federal Cabinet will meet in Islamabad with Prime Minister Imran Khan in the chair to discuss and approve the federal budget proposals.

Yesterday, Finance Minister Shaukat Tarin presented the Pakistan Economic Survey 2020-21.

While addressing a presser, Tarin said that the economy is still recovering from the impacts of coronavirus pandemic.

 “The unemployment increased in the country due to coronavirus pandemic; however, due to Imran Khan’s visionary policy of not imposing a complete lockdown across the country, millions of people who lost jobs were hired again,” he said.

Tarin said that government had aimed at 2.1 percent growth of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and International Monetary Fund (IMF) had predicted even lower, but the timely decisions by the government such as giving incentives to manufacturing textiles, construction and construction industry, helped the economy recover.

“The large-scale manufacturing witnessed a growth of 9 percent, while the growth of agriculture sector clocked in at 2.77 percent against a target of 2.8 percent, which was beyond our expectations,” he said.

Referring to inflation, Shaukat Tarin said that government had aimed at controlling the inflation while admitting that the prices of different essential commodities are still high and “affecting the common man".

Speaking over the concern of increasing debt in the country, the finance minister said that the surge in debt was inevitable and it had to rise considering there was a fiscal deficit in the country.

"The total debt has only surged by 1.7 trillion rupees from 2020-21 which is a huge decline if we compare it with previous years. I am not condemning the fact that debt is growing but, at the same time, our economy is also moving towards stability,” he said.

 “Next year we will end harassment by FBR. There are major changes on table,” he said.