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Pakistan

Government did control inflation: Hafeez Sheikh

Dunya News

Finance Minister Abdul Hafeez Sheikh says that the government has controlled the price hike.

During the budget debate in parliament, Sheikh said that the budget deficit was 7.5 percent when the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) came to power and inflation was at 25 percent.The minister said that the government took limited loan from the State Bank to control inflation and brought it down to 12 percent. He said that last year’s floods inflicted $10 billion damage on the national exchequer.The minister said that the investment goal could not be achieved due to the country’s precarious security situation.He said that the government had to take some difficult decisions to finialise the budget that offended the influential people, adding that the government had taken several measures to improve tax collection. He said that no new tax was imposed in the budget rather many old taxes were removed.The finance minister said that the government would remove the federal excise duty on all items in two years and expenses are being reduced.He said that the government wanted to control inflation by closing the budget deficit. Sheikh said that the government tried to bring the privileged class into the tax net as it did not want to levy taxes on common people. He said that the total volume of country’s export was $25 billion and the foreign exchange reserves had touched $17 billion during the current fiscal year.