Rs190bn lost daily due to opposition’s protest call: finance minister

There is decrease in tax collections and disruption of business as protests affect exports, says Aurangzeb

By Ashraf Malkham

November 25, 2024

This screengrab taken on March 5, 2024, from Pakistan Expo 2020’s YouTube video posted on October 5, 2021, shows Muhammad Aurangzeb speaking about investment opportunities. — YouTube@PakistanExpo

ISLAMABAD: Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb has said that Rs190 billion are lost daily due to the opposition’s call for protest.

In a conversation with Geo News on Sunday, the finance minister said that due to the lockdown and protests, there is a decrease in tax collections and disruption of business as protests affect exports.

He said that Rs190 billion are lost daily due to the opposition’s call for protest while extra expenses are incurred on security to maintain peace due to protest. The losses in IT and telecom sector are apart from this.

He said the shutdown of IT and telecom has a negative impact socially.

The finance minister said the Ministry of Finance has prepared a report in this regard and according to a conservative estimate, the GDP is losing Rs144 billion a day due to the strike and there is a loss of Rs26 billion a day due to a decrease in exports.

He further said that Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) is affected during the protest and there is a daily loss of Rs3 billion. The losses are different, the daily loss to the provinces in the agricultural sector is Rs26 billion and the loss to the provinces in the industrial sector is more than Rs20 billion.