Federal Minister Hammad Azhar to present Budget 2020-21 today

Minister for Industries and Production, Hammad Azhar will present Federal Budget for the year, 2020-21 in the National Assembly today at 4:00 pm.

A copy of the Finance Bill will also be laid in the Senate. As per details, the estimated outlay of the upcoming budget is around Rs7.5 trillion, the budget had been formulated considering the impact of coronavirus pandemic on the people and businesses of the country.

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.

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 Rs5.1 trillion for the fiscal year 2020-21.

Earlier, the government officially acknowledged that coronavirus has inflicted a loss of Rs3 trillion on the economy so far with 3 percent to 3.5 percent hit to the GDP and the severity of the pandemic on export and remittance will be more in the months ahead.

This was disclosed by Adviser to Prime Minister on Finance Dr Abdul Hafeez Shaikh, while launching the "Economic Survey 2019-2020" on Thursday.

The adviser added that it was not easy to quantify the impact of the coronavirus accurately because there was uncertainty with regards to how rapidly cases would increase and what would be the duration of the pandemic as well as what form social distancing and lock down would take in the coming days and weeks.

Meanwhile, a special session of the Federal Cabinet chaired by Prime Minister Imran Khan will also be held tomorrow to approve the budgetary proposals.