Dar urges SAARC countries to promote trade

• Dar says transparency, good governance among top priorities of the government

Finance Minister Ishaq Dar says international institutions have expressed complete confidence in Pakistan’s economic statistics.

Addressing a conference organised under the auspices of South Asian Federation of Accountants in Islamabad on Saturday, he said SAARC countries should promote trade and links with each other.

He said there is no cut in development budget of the country and the journey of prosperity will continue. Ishaq Dar said 260 percent increase has been made in development budget.

Ishaq Dar said we inherited a poor state of the economy with the growth rate of meagre 3 percent in 2013. However, due to economic vision of Prime Minister and effective economic policies the situation of the economy has highly improved.

The minister said our government has signed agreements with international institutions to help stop tax evasion, and as a result tax income will exceed 3500 billion rupees this year.

He said the government is spending additional one hundred billion rupees to improve law and order.

The finance minister said we will welcome suggestion of forum in the field of social development. He was of the view that the membership of multi-national convention would help bring transparency in the management system, which he said would attract investment in the SAARC countries.

In addition, he added, the government was spending about Rs100 billion for ensuring peace and security in the country.

He said that after long, the development budget would be surpassing the budget deficit, adding that there would be no cut in the development budget to continue journey towards progress and prosperity.

He said that the government has taken a number of measures to check tax evasion, adding that it signed agreements with international institutions to control tax thefts.

He said that the merger of all stock exchanges into Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) has led to making the stock market of Pakistan among five best markets of the world due to its performance.

Talking about China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) projects, the Finance Minister said that out of the Rs46 billion investments, Rs34 billion were being spent on energy projects adding that this would help to overcome the energy and power crisis in the country.

He said that transparency and good governance were among top priorities of the government.