Minister of State for Finance and Investment, Salim Mandviwala, has said that US Chamber of Commerce has declared Karachi Stock Exchange as most profitable in the world. In an interview on Sunday, the Minister said that $600 million of the coalition support fund (CSF) would be received from the United States next month.
He dismissed speculations that the US has set certain conditions for the release of CSF. He said depreciation of rupee against the dollar was not due to payment of instalment to the IMF but for trade deficit. He said Pakistan was making repayment to the IMF according to schedule and there is no cause for worry.
Mandviwala said it was not possible to increase domestic production without overcoming the energy crisis.
He praised the overseas Pakistanis for their remittances but pointed out that this amount could be doubled if Hawala and Hundi system was eliminated from the market.
He said that after becoming Minister of State for Finance, his target was to increase remittances and exports and if they were able to increase them by $6 to $7 billion, the country would not need to purchase dollars from the market.
To a question, Mandviwala said that to meet the shortage in tax collection, the government was staring Tax amnesty scheme to bring another seven and a half lakh people in the tax net, who were bound to pay taxes but evading it. He said it was unfortunate that the salaried class was paying taxes but those earning millions and billions of rupees were not paying any tax.
He admitted that there was corruption in government departments and assured the government would take action as and when identified by the media. He also expressed his concern over the way state enterprises were being run. To another question, the Minister of State for Finance said all the economic indicators are now satisfactory and the situation would improve once the energy crisis was resolved. For this purpose, Pakistan would have to build more dams and exploit coal and other sources of energy.