ISLAMABAD, Oct 23 (APP): Minister of State for Finance and Revenue, Ali Pervaiz Malik on Wednesday informed the Lower House of the Parliament that under the directions of the Prime Minister prioritizing an increase in exports, no restriction has been imposed on the industries importing raw material post-International Monetary Fund (IMF) program finalization.
He was responding to the question of Member National Assembly (MNA), Mussarat Rafique Mahesar during the question hour session of the seventh meeting of the 10th National Assembly session held here.
Ali Pervaiz Malik said the Ministry of Finance post-IMF Program has not imposed any restriction on the raw material import, whereas the government efforts for increasing exports were scaled up alongwith efforts to enhance competitiveness of businesses, access to finance being made available so that the exporters could meet working capital needs.
In reply to another supplementary query of MNA, Dr Shazia Sobia Aslam Soomro, he said there was a need to ensure distinction between inflation and price hike mechanisms.
“The decline in inflation means that the price hike ratio has dropped as the commodities’ prices could not be raised at a faster pace. The inflation is the biggest tax for the common man that reduces its purchasing power capacity. The power sector prices are causing negative impacts on common masses,” he said.
The Minister underlined that the PM taskforce was actively taking up this issue and efforts were underway, however the Power Minister should be asked for a detailed workplan to reduce power prices by the Assembly.
Earlier, Parliamentary Secretary for Commerce, Zulfiqar Ali Bhatti said under the National Tarriff Policy 2019, the government have rationalized 6,500 tariff lines out of the total 7,580 and reduced 2,198 tariff lines to zero.
He added that a Rs 22 billion relief was given to the industry and traders and the government was organizing trade expos to improve exports of the country.
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