ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s Finance Minister Ishaq Dar has said that he was confident in tackling the ninth review successfully with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to get the extended fund facility soon.
While addressing on the floor of the national assembly over the budget 2023-24 on Saturday, the finance minister said that Pakistan had addressed the compliances on all prior actions, however with a bit of delay adding that after a series of meetings by the Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif with the Managing Director of IMF in Paris would be termed as fruitful to tackle, the ninth review as MD IMF has agreed to make a last-ditch effort to complete the pending review.
Ishaq Dar also mentioned that now the government of Pakistan has agreed to take additional taxation measures of 215 billion rupees, adding that the move would not burden the poor people.
Reducing Expenditure to Take IMF Deal
The Minister said that the government would also take measures to reduce current expenditures by 85 billion rupees, he added.
Ishaq Dar also clarified that the reduction in current expenditure would not affect the annual development plan as well as the salaries and pensions of government employees to which the IMF has agreed.
The Finance Minister said that to ensure complete transparency, the details of the meetings with the IMF were being shared with the public, adding that once the agreement was tackled with the IMF, it would also be uploaded on the finance ministry’s website.
Regarding the collection of taxes, the minister said that as per understanding with the IMF, the annual FBR tax collection target has been enhanced from 9200 billion rupees to 9415 billion rupees. The total outlay of the budget would now be 14480 billion rupees, he added.
