Pakistan facing rising account deficit: minister

ISLAMABAD: Minister of State for Finance Rana Mohammad Afzal Khan on Monday conceded that Pakistan was facing challenges on front of rising current account deficit and they were finding out ways to arrange dollars for financing imports of machinery and raw materials in order to fuel growth.

He also invited mainstream political parties for signing Charter of Economy. “I invite all political parties on behalf of government for signing charter of economy,” the Minister of State for Finance Rana Mohammad Afzal said while addressing round table on Charter of Economy among political parties ahead of upcoming general elections organised by Islamabad Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ICCI) in collaboration with SPDI and Eighteen here on Monday.

The minister said that managing dollars for financing the increasing trade deficit had now become the biggest challenge for the government in these days. “We are also contemplating upon option to introduce amnesty scheme for bringing backs foreign currency and assets from abroad. With increasing international arrangements such as OECD and agreement with Switzerland, Dubai has been forced to share details of those Pakistanis owning properties there”, added the minister.

The minister said no one wants to pay taxes including him but system and procedures are placed in such a way that no one could be able to evade taxes. “I don’t want to pay taxes and no one wants to pay the taxes”, he said and added that tax collection was necessary to run the affairs of the country.

The minister declared property and housing sector as “golden sparrow” having worth of over $200 billion and said that the profit margins for builders in Pakistan were massive at least by over 100 percent. He publicly complained to Association of Builders and Developers of Pakistan (ABAD) that they signed an agreement with government for paying Rs24 billion in shape of taxes in 2016 but they paid less than Rs1 billion.

On China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), he said there was complete transparency for undertaking CPEC projects as around 70 percent projects were completed under early harvest programme.

PTI leader Asad Umar said on the occasion that Pakistan’s external debt and liabilities stood at over $61 billion in first 60 years indicating that the country’s EDL went up by just $1 billion on average on per annum basis but it increased up to $6 billion just in this ongoing financial year at a time when the foreign currency reserves slashed down by $3 billion.

The PTI leader said that former Finance Minister Ishaq Dar used to come on television for offering political parties for signing charter of economy but he had always taken stance that the Standing Committees of both National Assembly and Senate were appropriate forums having representation of all mainstream political parties where consensus on economy could be achieved.

He reminded that Ishaq Dar had never appeared before the Standing Committee so it was used just for political gains. Later on, talking to The News, Asad Umar said that there were fundamental flaws in policy formulation under Dar’s leadership.