Economy out of crisis phase, insists Umar

[ahlam1399]

ISLAMABAD: Finance Minister Asad Umar said on Monday the country’s economy, after facing severe challenges, had entered into stabilisation stage which would continue for about one-and-a-half year, and then the country would head towards sustainable growth.Speaking at the launch of the Medium-Term Economic Framework (MTEF) report titled ‘Roadmap to Stability, Growth and Productive Employment’, the minister said the economy had come out of crisis phase. The government was working on short, medium and long term measures by restructuring fundamentals of the economy, he added.The minister said the steps include tightening the current account as well as fiscal deficit, enhancing revenue collection, promoting exports, increasing savings for investments and introducing the ease of doing business. Umar said under the mid-term economic framework, reforms would be introduced to streamline tax system by separating administrative and policy setups of the Federal Board of Revenue.The minister said information system, digitisation and integrated data sharing system were being evolved by making amendments to the Constitution in order to strengthen the collection mechanism.Besides, he said, the government was taking steps for enhancing the enforcement capacities, simplifying the returns filing system and bringing more transparencies.The minister said the government was planning to introduce an asset declaration scheme, which was broadly aimed at the documentation of economy, adding in this regard the system of collecting information from abroad was now in place.He said the draft of the mid-term policy framework would be shared with the standing committees of the National Assembly and the Senate and their suggestions would be sought to bring further reforms in the framework.Umar said rules and regulations for the Benami law were finalised and the notices were being served to all such persons having Benami property and assets.With regard to exchange rate and strengthening the value of rupee against dollar, the minister said the country had to face immense losses due to the wrong decisions of the previous government to keep the real exchange rate high and keeping the rupee overvalued. He said the government was taking measures to stabilise the exchange rate by restructuring its fundamentals and promoting the exports of the country.Umar said under medium term economic framework, the government was also working on improving ease of doing business and had set a target to bring the country among the top 70 countries in term of ease of doing business.The minister said the government was also focusing on promoting regional trade by improving connectivity through Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Iran, Turkey, India and China.The minister said during his visit to Washington DC, he would meet with the finance ministers of Tajikistan and Afghanistan to discuss prospects of bilateral trade and investment with these countries. He said Pakistan was ready to discuss issues including Kashmir with India to normalise relations with New Delhi and promote regional trade.He highlighted three critical factors that have constrained Pakistan’s growth potential and caused cycles of balance of payment crisis. These include the Revenue-Expenditure gap, the Saving-Investment gap and the Export-Import gap.He said the MTEF report showcased the government’s strategy to deal with those three structural imbalances and putting the economy on the path to sustainable growth and job creation.http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/com/cwEr/~4/9DvoHm9RvEk

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