The International Monetary Fund (IMF) team is scheduled to visit Pakistan in the third week of the current month as part of routine Post Programme Monitoring (PPM), Finance Minister Ishaq Dar stated on Saturday while talking to the media. An official confirmed that the IMF team was expected to hold discussions with Pakistani authorities on PPM from June 19, onwards.
The Finance Minister said that federal budget would be presented in the National Assembly on June 12. National Economic Council (NEC) would be constituted today (Sunday) and convened on June 10 to approve next fiscal year''s development budget. Dar further stated that the government had prepared a comprehensive plan to deal with the economic and energy challenges as well as reduce the country''s debt, which had increased significantly during the last decade. The Minister stated that financial discipline would be maintained.
Finance Minister said the austerity drive would not be enough to deal with the challenges as serious steps would be required to increase resources and reduce expenditure. Senator Dar further stated that economic challenges would be handled honestly and transparently and the government would provide relief to the people. He said the budget for 2013-14 envisaged an ambitious revenue collection target and the government''s priority would be to reduce circular debt, which had escalated to Rs 500 billion, adding all possible measures would be taken in the budget to bring down inflation.
The Finance Minister said the government would fix ambitious target for revenue collection for the next financial year and would ensure that it was achieved at all cost. He said the current fiscal year''s revenue collection target of Rs 2,381 billion was revised downward to Rs 2,050 billion and the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) had been directed to ensure the achievement of revised revenue and acknowledged the tax evasion.
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