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ISLAMABAD: Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb said that rollover of loan from friendly countries for Pakistan would be made in the ongoing month and added discussion with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) are being held on a daily basis for the new Extended Fund Facility (EFF).

This was stated by the minister during a brief media talk after the Senate Standing Committee on Finance meeting. He said that Pakistan’s financing gap is $3-5 billion during the IMF programme and the government is trying to reduce it. This gap is not unmanageable, he said and added that Pakistan’s credit rating has been upgraded by international credit rating agencies and the commercial banks are now offering loans.

The government will not take loan at higher interest rates; therefore, the Finance Ministry has been considering the interest rate of the loans. Aurangzeb said that for talks with China on IPPs, an adviser would be needed and the government has hired adviser in China on early issuance of Panda Bonds in Chinese market.

On the issue of digitisation, the minister said that the FBR digitisation is underway and the task has been given to the Minister of State for Finance. He said conversion of coal power plants to local coal will take two to three years. He said that the IMF Executive Board meeting will be held at the end of this month to take staff-level agreement of $7 billion extended fund facility.

Earlier, in the committee meeting, the finance minister said that Fitch has upgraded the rating in the last two weeks and State Bank Pakistan (SBP) has reduced the interest rate. He said both these measures are very good news in the current fiscal year that led to increase in the confidence of local investors. He added that all rating agencies were briefed on the country’s economic situation. Hopefully, he said Pakistan’s rating will improve further in the months ahead.

The finance minister said all the people are being brought into the tax net and the government has decided to bring into the net, retail, real estate, exports and agriculture sector. The minister added that refunds worth Rs70 billion have been issued in the first month of this financial year.

He said we have to increase tax collections and easy procedure of tax registration is being adopted for traders. He said that the steps are being taken to reduce government expenditure with transfer of provincial affairs to the provinces and the merger/integration of various ministries. The Privatization Committee of the Cabinet has approved the privatisation of 24 entities and was questioned by Senator Farooq H Naek that how many ministries are being abolished under the 18th constitutional amendment.

“We are working to eliminate more than 40 federal ministries, the minister said, adding that these ministries will be phased with five ministries in each phase.” Recommendations to eliminate the five ministries of the first group will come out in the next few days, he said, adding that only important development projects have been given priority.

He said development projects will be run on Public Private Partnership basis and assured the committee of briefing with time line about these institutions.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2024

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