Federal Information Minister Shaikh Rashid Ahmed has said that he would see that the fixed income tax imposed on advertising companies has been withdrawn.
He was speaking as the chief guest at the 18th Pakistan Advertising Association Excellence Award-2004 distribution ceremony held at a local hotel here on Tuesday.
He said that he would meet Finance Minister Shaukat Aziz and sort out the issue. "I will get the tax withdrawn in a day or two," he added.
Rashid said that the next year would begin with big government advertising budget and a lot of advertising budget would be spent through the print and the electronic media.
He said if this opportunity was properly harnessed, the print as well as the electronic media would be able to see all entries in their balance sheets in the black.
The minister said that the media should now look towards private sector for advertising business. "In coming days there would be gradual reduction in advertising budget of the public sector and there would be increase in the advertising budget of the private sector.
He said he knew that two mobile phone companies that were coming to Pakistan to launch their products had huge advertising and product promotion budget. "The volume of their advertising is likely to surpass all the previous records of advertising business in Pakistan," he added.
Rashid said that the print media should review its relations with the government. In case of Nawa-i-Waqt government advertisements were suspended and are still suspended owing to ethical issues. "It pains me but the newspaper is itself responsible for its sour relations with the government." He said balance was the key word in maintaining relationships.
He said that during the last few days newspapers had come out with poster-size anti-government publicity campaign. "What they wanted to communicate? The size of these advertisements were so horrible that I wonder if they would publish such big size advertisements on the death of their elders or their loved ones, and that too, so persistently."
He said that these tactics would not bow 'us' down. Let the common sense prevail, he said.
Talking about his stay in the Information Ministry for so long Rashid said that he had seen even difficult days than these newspaper campaigns when there was Wana, Afghanistan, al-Qaeda, MMA, LFO and skirmishes with the media were a matter of routine and the government was under great pressure from all sides.
"I have lived those difficult times and am prepared to face even more difficult situations in future."
He said, "Illiterate men understands the situation of Pakistan and world politics better than many literate people here in Pakistan."
He said he would propose that all the stakeholders should have cordial relations and think in terms of progress and stability of the country.
Earlier, S. Manzoor Ali Zaidi, chairman, PAA, S. H. Hashmi, patron-in-chief, PAA, and Mahmood Parakh, chairman, PAA (Sindh and Balochistan Zone) spoke on the occasion and highlighted some of the problems being faced by them.
The minister gave away the awards to the winners.
Ziaul Islam Zuberi and Shamim Kazmi served as the judges of the prize awarding committee.
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