FCCI chief hails federal budget

Sheikh Farooq Yusuf Acting President Faisalabad Chamber of Commerce & Industry (FCCI) has welcomed the new Federal Budget 2018-19 terming it as people friendly and pro-industry.
Talking to media persons he said that if the 5 years of this government are compared with the tenure of previous government, there is laudable improvement despite of inherited and chronic problems of load shedding, terrorism and negative politics. The government has achieved visible success but if year to year comparison is made, the government failed to achieve most of the set targets in different fields. He said that GDP target was fixed at 6% but government achieved only 5.8%. The increase of 12% in export is very encouraging in the prevailing situation but at the same time the widening gap between imports and exports is very alarming which will have negative repercussions on the overall national economy. He identified that government has included a number of FCCI proposals in this budget including trimming discretionary powers of tax collectors, continuation of zero rating policy for exports and increasing tax slap from 4 Lac to 1.2 million. He said that increase in salaries and pensions of government employees are also right step in right direction which will mitigate the financial problems of the salaried class. He also welcomed the increase in house rent which has been increased up to 50%.
Commenting on the agriculture sector, Farooq Yusuf said that a number of positive incentives have been doled out to the farming community which would not only stabilized this productive segment of our economy but also play a pivotal role in the weeding out rural poverty. He told that 5% regulatory duty was levied on a medicine for the treatment of cancer erroneously which has been proposed to be withdrawn. He termed reduction in withholding tax on bank transaction by non filers as insufficient and said that withholding tax on filers should be withdrawn completely while its rate for non filers should be further curtailed to 0.03%. In view of the increased use of computer in everyday life, he welcomed the withdrawal of duties on 21 parts of computers but lamented increase in further tax from 2 to 3.