Islamabad (Web Desk): Pakistan authorities has informed the International Monetary Fund (IMF) that the federal cabinet on Tuesday (today) will approve various tax proposals to generate an additional revenue of Rs170 billion through a presidential ordinance.
“We will adopt the path of promulgation of an ordinance for avoiding further waste of time. Once the cabinet grants its nod the presidential ordinance will be promulgated within the current week,” sources said.
Last week, Finance Minister Ishaq Dar said that Pakistan and the IMF mutually agreed to a number of points for the completion of ninth review of the Extended Fund Facility (EFF), entitling Pakistan to a 1.2 billion dollars tranche.
Addressing a press conference in Islamabad, the finance minister said that the government will have to impose Rs170 billion in taxes through a mini-budget in order to revive the loan programme.
He confirmed that the government had received the draft of the Memorandum of Economic and Financial Policies (MEFP) from the IMF.
“We have received the draft of MEFP from the IMF and talks on it will virtually be started from Monday,” the finance minister said.
Ishaq Dar said reforms in the energy sector will be implemented and its main thrust is to check the flow of the circular debt. He said the circular debt in the gas sector will be brought to zero while untargeted subsidies will be minimized. He said these decisions in fact are in the country's own interest to fix the economy.
The finance minister said commitment vis-a-vis Petroleum Development Levy has almost been fulfilled.