No extra burden on the poor in supplementary budget: Asad

islamabad — Finance Minister Asad Umar on Tuesday said that the government had not proposed to impose any extra burden on middle and lower middle class and all the extra taxes were being levied on the upper income people in the supplementary budget.

Addressing a Press conference after presenting the Finance (Amendment) Bill, 2018 in the National Assembly and Senate, Asad said the amendments were inevitable due to some over-ambitious estimations in the budget presented by former finance minister Miftah Ismail in May this year.

The government overestimated revenues by Rs350 billion and understated expenditures by Rs250 billion, he said, adding that in total, there was a Rs890 billion difference in the projected and budgeted figures for the deficit.

Asad said the country was undergoing severe economic crisis, so the government took emergency measures to ease the situation.

Asad said previous fiscal year ended with a current account deficit of over $18.1 billion and if the present government could not introduce extra measures, the deficit could touch $21 billion mark by end of current fiscal year.

He said that in order to boost exports, which were main source of increasing foreign exchange reserves, the government had proposed special relief measures on export sector including reducing gas price for all the zero rated export-oriented sectors, and reducing import duties on export-related raw material.

The minister hoped that due to measures introduced by the government, a large number of small and medium factories would be functional within few months thus increasing exports and creating thousands of new jobs. —