KARACHI: Financial analyst Ateeq Ur Rehman Monday said the government needs to incentivise agriculture sector by allowing tax holiday on import of agricultural machinery, good quality seeds, fertilizer, development of storage space & warehousing, cool chains, silos, reprocessing units, etc. Not much has been discussed on the subject in this budget, he maintained.

He said that our Agriculture produce is continuously decaying. This year’s growth target was 3.31% whereas it was only 2.77%. For example produce of cotton from 13millions bales reduced to 6.5 million bales. Thus our textile industry imported $ 2 billion cotton.

The Finance Minister said that Pakistan will become once again a food exporting nation. He is right, agriculture, deep sea dishing, sea food industry, cattle farming and dairy farming will be a value addition to our sustainable economic growth. Relief to discussed industries is also missing in the budget said Ateeq.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2021