Pakistan Finance Minister Abdul Hafeez Shaikh
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s Finance Minister Abdul Hafeez Shaikh presented the Financial Budget 2011-12 in the National Assembly for approval, June 3, 2011, DawnNews reported.
He unveiled that the FY 2011-2012 budget is set at 2,767 billion rupees, up 14.2 per cent from the 2010/11 fiscal year.
“This time the fiscal deficit will be about four per cent of Pakistan’s GDP,” stated the Finance Minister.
Shaikh said that the economy had been badly affected by floods. “Pakistan had incurred a loss of 10 billion dollars.”
He went on to say that the foreign reserves were on a record high. “They stand at over $17 billion at the moment.”
The minister said, “We will try to control the price hike as well as provide relief through Utility Stores. The Utility Stores will be provided more funds. In addition to that, the Federal Excise Duty (FED) on soft drinks has been reduced to six per cent.”
He said, “We have allocated a huge sum of money to provide subsidies in the energy sector.” He also said Rs 32.5 billion had been allocated for the Water and Power Development Authority (Wapda).
He further stated that Rs.50 billion had been allocated for the transport sector.
Shaikh talking about salaries and pensions said, “The salaries of government servants will be raised by 15 per cent and pension will be increased by 15 to 20 per cent.” The minister also said that there was a proposal to increase 25 per cent allowances of government servants of Grade 1 to 15 and that this proposal was under consideration to revise the pay scales after merging the ad-hoc relief given till 2009. He went on to say that conveyance allowance of government servants and the armed forces had been increased by 25%.
Shaikh said that more than 71,000 people in the country had been issued tax notices.
He said, “After the seventh National Finance Commission (NFC) award, tax mobilisation will become the responsibility of the provinces as well.”
Shaikh said that the General Sales Tax (GST) had been reduced from 17 per cent to 16 per cent. He went on to say that regulatory duties on 392 items were to be removed.
He said that 2.3 million people were to be brought into the tax net. The minister went on to say that all special excise duties were to be abolished.
He also said that the tax base would be increased from Rs 300,000 to Rs 350, 000.
Shaikh also stated that the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) would be given preference.