Around Rs7.5 trillion national budget to be presented Friday

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf government is going to present its second budget for the fiscal year 2020-21, with an estimated outlay of around Rs7.5 trillion, on June 12 (Friday).

The National Assembly is already in session where the budget for the fiscal year 2020-21 would be presented, official sources said.

This year, the budget had been formulated considering the impact of COVID-19 on the people and businesses of the country, hence mitigating people’s sufferings and bolstering businesses would be the main focus of the document, source said.

In addition to fiscal management, revenue mobilization, measures for economic stabilization and growth, reduction in non-development expenditures; boosting exports besides job creation and people friendly policies for the socioeconomic prosperity of the country would feature in the budget.

It would also focus on social sector development besides introducing reforms for improving governance and boosting private sector for investment.

On the revenue side, though no new taxes would be introduced, the government would introduce measures for bringing improvements in the system of tax collection, broadening the tax base, and facilitation to tax payers, sources said arguing that a strong revenue generation will play a crucial role in achieving the targets for economic growth.

The government is likely to set the revenue collection target at Rs. 5.1 trillion for the fiscal year 2020-21.

The budget was being prepared in close coordination between all departments and ministries involved in budget related events.

Meanwhile, Adviser to the Prime Minister on Finance and Revenue, Dr Abdul Hafeez Shaikh said Thursday launched Pakistan Economic Survey (2019-20), which highlighted that the country’s economy was stabilizing before the outbreak of coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19), which inflicted losses of about Rs. 3000 billion and derailed it towards negative growth of 0.38 percent.

The survey revealed that the agriculture growth also declined to 2.67 percent whereas there has been negative growth of 2.64 percent in industrial sector and negative 0.59 percent growth in services sector during the outgoing year.