ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, while urging the business community to take steps to increase exports, acknowledged the high taxes and said that if it were up to me, I would reduce the tax by 15 percent now, but the time will come.
Addressing the Federal Government’s Construction and Development Day ceremony in Islamabad, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said that today’s gathering has been decorated to show that the journey that Pakistan has made from darkness to light in one year is not the work of a single individual but the result of a collective effort.
He said that it was June 2023 that there was a conference in Paris and our International Monetary Fund (IMF) program was faltering because their conditions were strict, there was a storm of inflation within the country and the way the common man across the length and breadth of Pakistan endured this storm and the difficulties they endured, I salute them because without these difficulties we would not have reached here today.
He said that he met with the IMF MD in Paris and he said that time has passed and it is probably not possible now, but when I asked him, he said that there is an external gap on which we said that we should talk to the Islamic Development Bank that Pakistan needs one billion dollars, but he said that it is not possible for us.
He said that when I told the then Finance Minister, he made amendments to the budget in the assembly and the very next day the IMF MD and the Islamic Development Bank promised to provide one billion dollars.
He said that policies will be formulated in consultation with the business community, we have taken difficult decisions to put the country on its feet and in one year the country is on the path of development.
He said that in September, a $7 billion agreement was signed with the IMF, the country was saved from default through teamwork, he does not want to criticize the previous government, but the economy was in a bad state, investors were abused and inflation reached 40 percent in the previous government.
The Prime Minister said that the common man faced difficulties due to inflation, the salaried class paid Rs 300 billion in taxes.
Shahbaz Sharif said that smuggling from Afghanistan was stopped and sugar worth $ 211 million was exported this year.
He said that terrorism had ended in 2018, but unfortunately it has returned again. Why did this terrorism return, the question will have to be asked.
The Prime Minister said that if it were up to me, I would reduce taxes by 15 percent now, but the time will come.
