Govt to launch Daispora, Sukuk bonds: Asad Umar

ISLAMABAD: Minister for Finance, Revenue, and Economic Affairs Asad Umar on Friday said the government had decided in principle to launch Diaspora and Sukuk bonds besides other initiatives to improve the flow of remittances to the country.

Speaking in the Senate, the finance minister said the government would decide to get loans from international institutions after consulting the Parliament and decision to take loans from International Monetary Funds (IMF) would be taken after seeking Parliament’s consent.

He pointed out that exports witnessed decline and imports surged continuously over the last five years, and the government had to obtain loans to fill the gaps. "Our effort is to address the root causes of the loans."

The finance minister informed that Prime Minister Imran Khan would chair a high level meeting on Monday to discuss issues relating to currency smuggling and money service providers. "We have to take definite actions before the next meeting of Financial Action Task Force (FATF)."

He said the overall situation of remittances' growth was satisfactory about four years back, however the situation seemed very bad now.

One of the main reasons in decline of flow of foreign remittances was fiscal and labor reforms introduced in Saudi Arabia and Oman which had already affected overseas Pakistanis living in those countries, he said.

Responding to a question regarding the involvement of money changers in the illegal mean of money transferring, the Minister said, the area of financial growth was very important for the government.

He informed that the system of mobile money transferring was being launched that needed to be advertised to get rid of the issues being faced during money changing process.

He said that a meeting would be held next week with the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) officials to discuss implementation of the reforms strategy.

He said currently one million people were filling their tax returns and there was a potential to further enhance the figure to about three million.