ISLAMABAD: Leaders of all important political parties, business and social communities agreed on Friday to formulate a National Economic Agenda (NEA) with mutual consensus to promote economic welfare of the citizens.
"The Pakistan Business Council (PBC) strongly supports the political dialogue for developing a consensus on a minimum national economic agenda and suggests recommendations including a sustainable solution of energy crisis, urgent and concrete steps to reduce public finance deficit and significant increase in education, health and income support expenditures for the most vulnerable segment of the society," Abdul Razzak Dawood, Chairman Pakistan Business Council (PBC) said while addressing a forum organized by PBC here.
The purpose of organizing the forum was to present the recommendations for economic growth to the leadership of major political parties and other stake holders and develop a consensus on a minimum national economic agenda which can be adopted by the national political leadership.
The forum was attended by leaders of all major political parties, stake holders from civil and business community.
Dr, Farooq Sattar from MQM said that the balance of economic power is shifting from West to East and if we could not correct our fundamental economic wrongs we would left far behind in the regional economic race.
"We need to design a charter of economy which may be formulated with mutual consensus. Moreover there should be no injustice in tax system. Tax should be levied on every type of income. Tax net should be enhanced including bringing agriculture sector into the tax net," he suggested the recommendations and added that agriculture of the country contributes 23 per cent of national GDP but unfortunately its contribution in tax is only one per cent.
Raja Pervez Ashraf from Pakistan Peoples' Party stressed the need for sustainable economic policies and said that country can only prosper if the sustainable economic policies evolved with mutual agreement.
Ahsan Iqbal from PML-N said that the main problem in our economic system is lack of implementation. He said that if we implement all the policies made for the economic strength of the country, our economy would be strengthen to a great deal.
Regarding recent Pakistan-India trade agreement, Farooq Sattar said that his party fully supports the enhancing of trade between Pakistan and India.
Similarly Ahsan Iqbal said that regional trade is very important for the country's economic growth and there should be no harm in starting trade relations with India.
Former Minister for Information Sherry Rehman said that agreement between the two countries was of great importance for both the countries as it would help improve the trade and as well as political relations between the two countries.
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