Smuggling creates artificial shortage, price hike: PM Imran
Last updated on: 01 December,2021 10:59 pm
PM Imran Khan emphasised the need for steps to check smuggling, money-laundering
ISLAMABAD (Dunya News) – Prime Minister Imran Khan on Wednesday emphasised the need for taking emergency measures to control the smuggling of commodities including wheat, urea, sugar, flour, petrol and check money-laundering.
Chairing a high-level meeting to review anti-smuggling and anti-money-laundering measures, he said heavy damage was inflicted on the economy as a result of smuggling of food commodities due to price differential.
He added that smuggling created an artificial shortage of commodities and ultimately resulted in price hike.
The prime minister directed that all stakeholders should undertake emergency measures and bring-out-of-the-box solutions to control smuggling of essential commodities.
He emphasized that the objective was to provide relief to the common man against the price hike.
The meeting was informed that Federal Investigation Authority (FIA) had undertaken extensive investigations against illegal money laundering and holding of US dollars.
It was apprised that security was being beefed up at border crossings to check goods and to ensure that each load was recorded for tracking purposes.
The meeting was briefed that significant success has been achieved to control illegal petrol smuggling and operations against hoarders.
The meeting was attended by Federal Ministers Sheikh Rashid Ahmed, Muhammad Hammad Azhar, Makhdoom Khusro Bakhtiar, Syed Fakhar Imam, Asad Umar, Advisor Finance Shaukat Fayaz Tarin, Advisor Commerce Abdul Razaq Dawood, SAPM Dr. Shehbaz Gill, Governor State Bank, Chairman FBR, senior civil and military officers.
Earlier today, PM Imran Khan congratulated the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) team for achieving a 35percent in revenues in November over last year.
Prime Minister Imran Khan, in a tweet, said that the board of revenue have also recorded a 37 percent increase in the five months over last year.
— Imran Khan (@ImranKhanPTI) December 1, 2021
The FBR on Tuesday said it had registered a “historic growth” in revenue collection of 36.5 percent from July-November of the fiscal year 2021-22.
“It has collected net revenues of Rs 2,314 billion during the first five months of the current FY against set target of Rs 2,016 billion, exceeding by Rs.298 billion,” an official tweet of FBR said.