Islamabad:
The Minister of Finance, Muhammad Aurangzeb, said on Saturday that the government was not too concerned about the 29% of additional rates imposed on its exports, but said that a high -level delegation would soon go to Washington for commercial negotiations.
“This is not something that concerns us too much, but we want to solve this problem,” said the Minister of Finance while attacking a press conference on recent economic developments.
The Minister did not give any details on the possible short-term negative impact on the estimated annual exports of Pakistan at $ 5.5 billion to the United States.
The declaration occurred in the heels of the decision of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif to establish a committee steering committee of policies and a technical working group to finalize the political response to the unilateral American action and take advantage of a nation of “early mover”.
The United States is a very important strategic partner at all levels and the largest trading partner, said the minister.
He said that in the coming days, the government was going to finalize the recommendations and that a high-level delegation will be sent to the United States for commercial negotiations. The government is constructed in a constructive way and we want our point of view to cross the table, he added.
The government was finalizing its recommendations in the direction of falling tasks on American goods and offered more opportunities to American sellers to minimize the trade surplus of $ 3 billion.
President Donald Trump threw unilateral prices against 60 nations with commercial surpluses, Pakistan in 33rd position with only a surplus of $ 3 billion due to higher textile exports.
Chinese debt
While answering a question, the Minister of Finance said that discussions with China were currently focused on refinancing the $ 1 billion commercial loan that Pakistan paid last month and Panda bond issues.
Islamabad returned a billion dollars of Chinese commercial debt assuming Beijing would relaunch it. Discussions on commercial loans are at a well advanced stage and the agreement will be finalized soon, he added.
The minister had been invited to say if there was progress on Pakistan’s requests for a new loan of $ 1.3 billion and the postponement of the 3.4 billion dollars guaranteed debt that matured during the IMF program. These two problems are waiting for sometimes and there has not been any tangible progress.
But the Minister of Finance said the discussions had remained productive. He also said that at the end of June, the country’s foreign exchange reserves will reach $ 13 billion, which are currently six months of $ 10.7 billion after having reimbursed Chinese debt.
IMF visits
The Minister of Finance said that Pakistan and IMF have active commitments and that there will be some missions that will realize for discussions.
Pakistan has requested IMF support on improving governance and the IMF corruption and governance diagnostic mission, said the Minister of Finance.
The Express PK Press Club reported that the IMF had sent a second mission to diagnose corruption and governance to Pakistan to keep in -depth commitments with more than 30 departments and institutions, including the registrars of the Supreme Court of Pakistan (SCP) and the Court of Responsibility.
The IMF mission will meet the SCP registrar to discuss the judicial efficiency and the responsibility of the judges. A separate meeting was also planned with the registrar of the Islamabad court of responsibility to discuss the operations of these special courts, they added.
To a question, the Minister of Finance said that another IMF mission would visit Pakistan in May for discussions on the next budget.
The Minister of Finance also mentioned that for the first time, the provinces had taken measures to achieve the objectives, and he expressed the hope that the IMF board of directors would soon approve the second tranche of $ 1 billion.
Opening economy
The Minister of Finance said that Pakistan industries will now have to be competing and that the economy will be open. His comments came in the light of understanding of Pakistan-IMF on the reduction of weighted average tariffs from 43% to 6% over a period of five years.
We cannot protect our industries without having a sun clause and each industry must export, said the Minister of Finance. He said there should be exports in each sector, expressing the satisfaction that the automotive sector has started exports in the past two months.
The minister said there was an increase in exchange reserves on the back of very strong funds and expressed the confidence that funds touched to collect $ 36 billion this exercise.
“Exports are also firmly growing 7%,” he added.
The Minister said that the FBR income collection would increase 32.5% this year, against the budgetary target of 40% growth. But the Minister said that the overall objective of increasing the tax ratio / GDP to 10.6% by the end of this exercise will be achieved. With growth of 32.5%, the FBR target was revised downwards to Rs12.3 Billions – a reduction of RS640 billion by the IMF.
The Minister of Finance said that there had been a significant reduction in interest rates and, in his opinion, there is room for an additional reduction.
He added that there was no difficulty opening letters of credit (LCS) or transferring profits by companies abroad. In the inner front, inflation has decreased considerably. He said that inflation rate reduction should be passed on to the public.
The Minister said that 870 billion purchasing rupees had been made during Eidul FITR, compared to 720 billion rupees in the past year, showing an increase of 21%. This shows that the purchasing power of people has increased, he added.
