‘Mini-budget’ possibility ruled out
- Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb says ongoing review talks with the IMF were moving in the right direction
ISLAMABAD: Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb on Wednesday ruled out the possibility of a mini-budget, asserting that no additional tax or revenue measures are under consideration at present.
Talking to reporters after attending the Senate Standing Committee on Finance here at the Parliament House on Wednesday, Finance Minister stated, “There is a commitment with the IMF to achieve a tax-to-GDP ratio at 11 percent for the current financial year and we will comply with it.”
Responding to a query on additional measures after revenue shortfall in the first quarter, the Finance Minister responded that, “There is no such thing under consideration at the moment”.
No proposal for mini-budget: FBR chief
He said that the ongoing review talks with the IMF were moving in the right direction. The IMF review mission, he said, was holding parleys for completion of the second review under $7 billion Extended Fund Facility (EFF), and then there would be the first review under the Resilience Sustainability Facility (RSF).
Earlier, during the Senate Standing Committee on Finance, which met under the Chairmanship of Senator Saleem Mandviwalla, the Minister for Finance said that the IMF review talks were moving in the right direction. He said that Pakistan’s macroeconomic stabilization resulted in the repayment of $500 million on the maturity of the Eurobond on September 30, 2025. Now this repayment, he said, has become a non-event. “We will also repay $1.3 billion on account of the maturity of Eurobond in April 2026,” he added. The minister said that Pakistan would launch a Panda bond, and its inaugural launch would be done in November 2025 in order to generate $250 million. The Panda bond will be launched with a size of up to $1 billion, and its issuance will be done in a phased manner. “It’s a significant development for entering into the Chinese market, and it should have been done a few years ago,” he added.
Muhammad Aurangzeb said that the annual federal budget for 2026-27 would not be prepared by the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR). The Tax Policy Unit (TPU) has been established in the Ministry of Finance, and an Advisory Board comprising public sector and private sector experts would be constituted to get recommendations. The TPU, he said, under the domain of the Ministry of Finance, would prepare the next budget for 2026-27, while FBR will only focus on collecting revenues. The Minister for Finance sternly opposed the Senate panel’s recommendation for the inclusion of members of Parliament into Boards of Regulatory Bodies and argued that no such precedent exists, so they opposed it.
The issue of sending a tax notice to Senator Afnanullah also came under discussion, and the FBR’s Member Hamid Ateeq Sarwar apprised the committee that the matter was sub-judice so it’s not appropriate to disclose personal details at this forum.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2025