KARACHI: Federal Minister Finance Rana Muhammad Afzal has said the government has no intentions of approaching the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for financial assistance, he said this while addressing a news conference here on Thursday.
Rana Afzal said the economic outlook of the country is positive and the government is receiving enough funds to meet development expenditures. He further said Pakistan has enough foreign exchange reserves to meet its debt obligations. The government will make all efforts during the next six months to leave the country in a healthy condition financially before the next elections.
The country has foreign exchange reserves of $ 19.7 billion, he noted.
The minister said import of unnecessary goods is being reduced and exports have increased by 17 per cent in the last five months. He expressed hope that the fiscal deficit would decrease in the days to come.
He also remarked that the agricultural sector would have more share in the GDP growth this year.
To a question, Afzal said Pakistan wants to resolve all issues with the United States through dialogue and will aim to satisfy the United States on every objection.
He said instability in Afghanistan is not in the interest of Pakistan. He said Pakistan is erecting barbed wire on the border with Afghanistan to prevent illegal cross-border movement.
Finance Minister Rana Afzal also visited Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) on Thursday to meet members of the Board of Directors of PSX, market participants and senior stakeholders.
PSX Board Chairman Muneer Kamal congratulated Rana Afzal on his appointment as finance minister.
Muneer Kamal made a brief presentation on various stages PSX passed through since 2012 when it was demutualised, integrated with other two stock exchanges in early 2016 and finally divestment of equity to Chinese consortium followed by self-listing in 2017. The PSX Board chairman enumerated various issues which are contributing to decline in the capital market and expressed his confidence that government would be able to resolve these issues, with the assistance of persons in the Ministry of Finance, having extensive exposure to finance and capital market.
On this occasion, Arif Habib, a senior market participant, while giving an overview of past and present performance of PSX, stated that KSE 100 Index fell by nearly 20 per cent in 2017 and negative performance is primarily attributed to increased taxes alongside political and economic woes, thus resulting into a directionless market, foreigners’ outflows instead of inflows despite MSCI upgradation.
Habib presented various recommendations for market development, which were recently submitted to the prime minister as well as Ministry of Finance. These included providing tax incentives for 5 years to companies to be listed, removal of tax on bonus shares or at least to impose such tax on face value rather than market value, reduction in advance tax on brokerage commission, reduction in corporate tax rate and removal of super tax, reinstating the holding company tax treatment, foreign currency investments by attracting non-resident Pakistanis, listing of government projects of significant value particularly from CPEC, rationalisation of tax on REIT and cutting down the rate of tax on capital gains along with the related holding period.
Taking a jibe at Imran Khan, Minister Rana Afzal said the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf chairman has never uttered words of praise for any positive development.
