- Budget load due to the lack of contribution from certain sectors: official.
- The contribution of the retail sector to the tax is 1%, deplores finmin.
- “The salaried and manufacturing sectors are faced with a disproportionate burden.”
Islamabad: the resident chief of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in Pakistan Mahir Binici has linked the existing economic challenges of Pakistan due to the debt burden on the inability of Islamabad to generate income to potential, The news reported on Friday.
“There is a higher tax burden in the formal sector,” said the IMF manager at a conference on “rethought retail: innovate, collaborate and prosper”.
Binici also stressed that a larger budget burden appeared mainly because there are certain sectors which do not contribute to the national chessboard.
His remarks are involved as a Washington -based lender -based examination mission should visit Pakistan in the first week of March to organize the parley exam under the prolonged $ 7 billion fund (EFF).
The fluid navigation of the first examination of the program sponsored by the IMF is considered to be quite crucial, because Islamabad will have to request derogations on the realization of certain conditionalities.
The government led by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif obtained approval from the IMF executive council for the fresh loans program in September 2024, followed by the disbursement of a branch of $ 1.02 billion.
With IMF officials in Pakistan, Islamabad will also have to develop a wider consensus on the main contours of the next budget for 2025-266 with lender staff.
If the two parties fail to develop consensus, the completion of the first review could be linked to the approval of the Budget of Parliament.
The IMF examination mission should visit Islamabad from March 4 at a time when the current account went from a surplus to a deficit per month (MOM) because it posted a deficit of $ 420 million in January 2025.
Speaking about the government’s commitment to stabilize economic indicators, the federal finance minister Muhammad Aurangzeb, said the part of the retail sector in the country’s GDP was 19%, but that Their contribution to the tax oscillated at 1%.
He said that there was an element of the formal and informal sectors even in the retail, tobacco and drinks where the formal subsidized the horsemen. This type of free journey is not durable.
“The salaried, manufactured sectors and to a certain extent services have been faced with a disproportionate burden to pay more taxes, but that cannot continue. person.
“It is not sustainable. From now on, agriculture, retail / wholesale and real estate will have to go to this trajectory,” said the Minister of Finance in the fight against the inaugural session of the conference .
The finish has also noticed that the application would be significantly done against the informal sectors and these unocured sectors contributing nothing to the national chessboard.