ISLAMABAD: The upper house of the Parliament was told on Wednesday that Pakistan would never roll back its nuclear programme.
Pakistan would not compromise its nuclear programme and provide necessary resources for the programme, Finance Minister Ishaq Dar said during a briefing to the Senate on public debt and economy. The minister categorically rejected the reports that Pakistan would roll back its nuclear programme and said that it was a matter of country’s security and sovereignty. The government would not roll back its nuclear programme even if someone offers it trillions of dollars, Dar said.
Referring to the economic issues, Dar said that Pakistan could collect taxes to the tune of Rs 3,000 to Rs 3,100 billion by the end of the current fiscal year. He said the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) collected taxes amounting to Rs 1,593.5 billion during the first seven months of the current financial year compared to Rs 1,345.3 billion taxes collected during the corresponding period last year, constituting a 18.4 percent increase.
He said the budget deficit during seven months of the current fiscal year was 1.8 percent compared to 2.3 percent during the corresponding period last year. Remittances by overseas Pakistanis during first seven months of the fiscal year stood at $11.2 billion, showing a six percent increase compared to the corresponding period last year.
The finance minister acknowledged that there was 11 percent decline in exports during first seven months of the current financial year because of global economic depression. He said that exports during this period were $12.513 billion compared to $14.129 billion during the corresponding period last year.
Dar said that imports declined by 6.8 percent during this period compared to the same period last year. Imports in the first seven months stood at $23.387 billion compared to $25.108 billion during the corresponding period last year. He said that trade deficit during the first seven months stood at $10.874 billion that was slightly less than $10.979 billion during the corresponding period last year.
The finance minister said the foreign direct investment during this period stood at $647.9 billion compared to $619.6 billion during the corresponding period last year, showing a 4.6 percent increase. He said that inflation in the first seven months of the current financial year was recorded at 2.48 percent compared to 5.45 percent during the corresponding period last year. He expressed the hope that inflation would remain below 4 percent throughout the year.
