Web Desk:
Hammad Azhar, the Federal Minister for Industries presented the budget for the financial year 2020-21 with total outlay of Rs. 7.13 trillion on Friday. No new tax has been imposed by the government, Mr. Azhar told the national assembly while presenting what the government called the corona budget.
He then went on to highlight some of the major achievements of the government in the outgoing fiscal year, pointing to a 73 per cent decline in the current account deficit, which is now under $3 billion, he said. “There is also a primary surplus which we achieved in the past nine months,” he said.
In the background of Azhar’s speech, loud slogans against the premier and table-thumping by the opposition benches could be heard as the minister highlighted the PTI-led government’s efforts to streamline the economy. Later, the opposition walked out of the House in protest.
Azhar said “our budget deficit shrank from 5pc to 3.8pc while IMF gave us an extended facility of Rs6 billion and remittances increased from Rs16b to Rs17b”. He noted that Bloomberg had called PSX the top performing market in Dec 2019.
Presenting details of the new budget, the minister emphasised that “no new tax was introduced in this budget”. He said the need of the hour was an expansionary fiscal policy which the government was implementing.
Total expenditure
He said the total size of the budget or the total expenditure budget for the next year stood at Rs7,136 billion — slightly higher than the budgeted figure for the previous year.
