The Federal Minister for Parliamentary Affairs, Dr Babar Awan, has said that all measures are being taken to ensure a business- and people-friendly budget for the financial year 2009-10. Addressing members of the Lahore Camber of Commerce and Industry on Saturday.
He said that in all four Cabinet meetings held so far in connection with budget-making the issues faced by the business community were thoroughly discussed. There was a consensus, among all the Cabinet members, that hitches and the longstanding issues coming in the way of smooth running of businesses should be take care of first. The budget would be forward looking and with a changed vision, he added.
He, however, made it clear that the present government is determined to widen the tax net and it has been decided at the highest level that all sectors should be brought into the tax net. The Minister said that the government is competent enough to cope with the challenges faced by the country and that was the only reason that it had to take quite a few unpopular decisions.
He urged the LCCI members in general and the office-bearers in particular to help and guide the government in bringing the country out of economic mire. Now all decisions are being taken by the elected representatives unlike the past when the decisions were taken by the bureaucracy.
"Your elected representatives are quite alive to all the issues and they are spending their energies to solve them at the earliest," he added. LCCI President Muzaffar Ali urged the government to seriously focus on increasing the industrial production and to fully exploit renewable energy resources to put economy back on rails.
He said that the current year, like year 2008, is witnessing a more terrible state of affairs, whether they exist in the shape of terrorism, acute shortfall of electricity, higher energy prices and exceptional surge in food inflation or in the form of financial market crisis.
He said these developments have had undesirable consequences of differing degrees for economies in different parts of the world and have affected Pakistan the most, both politically and economically. He said these external developments have equally played a vital role in stressing Pakistan's macro economic imbalances while uncertain security environment has adversely spoiled the performance of the country's economy.
The LCCI President said that in the given scenario, if the alarming situation continued, the wheel of industry, which has already slowed down, would get jammed. He said that it was not possible to get maximum productive output from the industry unless a continuous supply of energy is ensured.
"We understand that there is no immediate solution to overcome the growing energy deficit but at least we can reset our priorities by utilising our own resources of energy available within the country," he added. Muzaffar said that the government also needs to develop strong liaison with business community and whatever the decisions it takes must be on permanent basis.
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