President, Industrialists Association Peshawar (IAP) Eng Nauman Wazir has said that the national budget is political game and should be named as 'Utility Store Budget' saying that the budget was against the interest of local industry and regretted that nothing was announced to promote technical education and skill development.
He lamented that customs duty on marble and granite in Pata and Fata were already withdrawn and were exempted from sales tax but government announced it in the budget in order to deceive the masses and take political mileage out of it.
The president of IAP said that though it is very difficult for a civilian government to reduce defence budget, but in the presence of army's trust, a part of budget should have been allocated to improve law and order situation in the country. Likewise, he said that very little amount has been allocated for the social sectors like health and education.
Nauman Wazir regretted that despite signing the World Trade Organisation (WTO) Pakistan has not been reduced customs duties, which was highly condemnable.
He suggested that government should adopt non-tariff barriers (NTB) like India in order to strengthen the trade and economy otherwise imports from India and China will compel the local industries to close down.
Eng Wazir added that despite positive economic policy of the government for successive seven years, the GDP growth could not cross 7 percent figure.
On the other hand, he said Indian and Chinese growth have reached to 9.5 and 11 percent respectively. He contended that a new financial team is inevitable to take financial growth of the country to 11 -PR