Tarin Terms Inflation As Biggest Enemy

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ISLAMABAD: Adviser to the Prime Minister on Finance, Revenue and Economic Affairs Shaukat Tarin Thursday termed the inflation as the biggest enemy of the country and said that the government would check it through a 9-point agenda initiated for revival of the national economy.

He stated this while talking to newspersons after inaugurating the first meeting of the Census Advisory Committee on 6th population and housing census here at National Library Auditorium on Thursday.

The meeting was organized by Population Census Organization of the Statistics Division.

Shaukat Tarin said that efforts are being made to control 25 percent of inflation through boosting exports, reducing imports and propelling exports and controlling non development expenditures and bringing down the fiscal deficit.

He expressed the hope that tight monetary policy of the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) would help contain inflation in the next few months.

Replying to a question, he said that government is not planning to impose tax on agriculture adding the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has not imposed any condition of doing so.

“We have also reduced borrowing from the SBP”, he remarked.

However , he said the Fund has asked the country for the resource mobilization for reducing the fiscal deficit.

Shaukat Tarin said that the government has to enhance its tax to GDP ratio to 15 percent in next few years and every earning sector has to be taxed during next five to seven years for reducing the fiscal deficit.

Replying to another question , he said that Pakistan would get the first tranche from the IMF within 48 hours of the approval of the financial package of US $ 7.6 billion. “We will get the first tranche on Thursday, he remarked.

He added that markup of 4.2 to 4.3 percent is not a big interest rate on which Pakistan has got the loan from the IMF.

Replying to another question , he said that the government is not slashing the development fund instead it has plans to prioritized the projects.

“We have Rs.400 billion unutilized development fund in the banks first we have to utilize it for the social sector development”, he added.

He said that Friends of Pakistan (FOP) have assured Pakistan of their full support to project financing for the country.

He informed that a conference of FOP is scheduled to be held in New York on December 16 to discuss the financial support and project financing for Pakistan.

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