The PTI government has decided to complete lockdown from 08 to 16 May to avoid Eid shopping rush. The trader associations all around the country are not happy with the decision and have asked the government to review the decision otherwise they will open the shops or sit on lockdowns in the streets. In view of this announcement by government the markets are crowded with people for Eid shopping and the same time the cases of corona are going up. In this episode Kamran Khan interviews the new FM in his first interaction to media and asked about the economy and his plans to improve it.
Economic situation: The situation at this time economically is very challenging and on top of it Covid-19 has created havoc. The lockdown has impacted the growth and we have talked to the IMF to give space for tariff, we need to use the alternative. At this time the common man is already suffering and we cannot push them down by inflation. If we focus on manufacturing, export, agriculture and housing nothing can stop is from economic growth. If we take IT from 65% to 100% it will boost our economy. We can exploit CPEC in a very big way and ask from China to invest in other areas like textile.
Budget: There should be two kinds of tax, income and consumption and we need to make it more efficient. We will do progressive taxation, tax people with income and not otherwise. We will remove the process of harassment factor in taxation and will not tax additional tax on people who are giving tax. Some people do not want to pay tax due to harassment by FBR and for this we will replace it with technology, we will also bring in new tax payers and there will be audit and not blackmailing. We will take many actions on 01 July 2021, I am already engaged with World Bank and now we will talk to IMF. The Budget will come out in the middle of June.
Schemes: We are bringing a new programme Kamyab kisan (Successful Farmer) along with the Kamyab Nowjawan(Successful Youth) to encourage the youth in entrepreneur projects. We will give them loans to start work and when thousands of money reaches ground, economic activity will increase. We have experience in turning up Habib Bank, using that experience we will work on the economy and for the interference of the politicians has to be stopped. We are also moving towards targeted subsidies and give it to the lower income people.
We need to work on policies of NAB and see that it is not used as a tool of harassment, there is need to rationalize in this area.