Staff Reporter
Islamabad
Adviser to the Prime Minister on Finance and Revenue, Dr Abdul Hafeez Shaikh has said the outlook for the economy is strong and pick up in exports and remittances are supporting growth momentum.
“In December 2019, the large scale manufacturing output expanded by 16% on month on month basis, indicating that growth is starting to pick up,” he said while talking to a group of television anchorpersons at his office on Monday. The meeting was part of the Advisor Finance efforts to update the media and public on key economic policies and progress on reforms. The meeting was also attended by MNA Ms Kanwal Shauzab and Mr Omar Hamid Khan, Special Secretary Finance.
Dr Abdul Hafeez Shaikh shared updates on the recently-concluded 2nd review of the IMF staff by saying that the IMF staff concluded that “all end December performance criteria were met, and structural benchmarks have been completed.” “This has led to the IMF staff and Pakistan authorities reaching a staff level agreement which has paved the way for the IMF Board to release the next tranche of U$ 450 million in April 2020.
The Adviser also highlighted that the government had achieved a primary surplus of 0.6% of GDP (Rs 286bn) in first half of the FY2020, first time in over 10 years. “This has been achieved through stronger revenue collection with FBR tax collection rising by over 16.5% and through austerity in expenditure,” he said.
He further said that the non-tax revenue collection during the first half of the FY2020 had also gone up by 170% on year-on-year basis to reach Rs 876 billion (Rs 323 billion in same period last year) which would help reduce the build-up in debt. “During the first two years of the current government, over Rs 5 trillion in debt had been repaid to domestic and international creditors,” he added.
Dr Shaikh expressed concern over high inflation and apprised the participants on government efforts to reduce the burden on public. He highlighted that inflation has declined in the last 7 weeks and CPI inflation has declined to 12.4% in February 2020, down from 14.6% in January 2020 as a result of proactive measures by the government to allow imports and increase supply through utility stores. He said the government had doubled allocation in social safety programmes under the Prime Minister’s Ehsas Program to Rs 192 billion in FY20. However, many challenges remain particularly in resolving the energy sector challenges, he added.
