Govt to table fresh money bill next month: Asad

ISLAMABAD: Federal Minister for Finance Asad Umar said on Friday that pace and sequencing of reforms under the IMF programme were quite critical for finalising the Fund package and its attached conditionalities while there was no differences on the directions of the needed reforms.

He also said that the government would table a fresh money bill by mid of next month, and they would also share financing projections of three years period before parliament. “The curtailing of primary deficit is the desired objective as there is no difference on direction of the required reform path."

The pace of sequencing of reform process was quite critical and cited the example that overvaluation of rupee could not be justified by anyone, but the pace and sequencing became important, the finance minister told journalists in the presence of PM Imran Khan here at PM Office on Friday. Some questions were replied by Asad Umar in the presence of premier while some got replies after leaving his meeting room.

The minister said that it was not the issue of politics but about the economy as without an improvement in public finance management, the economy could not be fixed.

Asad Umar said that Pakistan was not vying for the IMF programme because of financing requirements of the Fund or other multilateral creditors, but they would go for the Fund programme for attracting global markets. To a question on the NFC, he said that Sindh sent out its name, and they forwarded summary to the PM on Friday for recommending to the president to reconstitute the NFC.

On the privatisation front, he said that the government would go for privatisation of LNG power plants, Services Hotel and SME Bank during the current fiscal year.

The plan to revive the Pakistan Steel Mills, he said, was under preparation and would be presented before the ECC by the end of January 2019. The PIA would get a financial package only when it will come up with an overall grand strategy.

He said that he had returned summaries for hiking electricity tariff as he wanted to put in place a clear roadmap for recovering outstanding arrears of Rs80 billion and Rs60 billion recovery through efficiency improvement.

PM’s Adviser on Commerce Abdul Razak Dawood said that the manufacturing base shrank and resulted into deindustrialisation in the country, and now the government would come up with an industrial policy to boost up exports.

He said that the market access from China and revision of Free Trade Agreement were two separate issues and the market access would be in place soon. He said that they were against subsidy, and all such practices would be phased out in months ahead. When he was reminded about the subsidy for sugar industry, he conceded that it was wrong and would be done away in the future.