Budget for the next fiscal year 2012-13 with total outlay of nearly 3 trillion rupees will be presented in the parliament tomorrow.
Finance Minister Abdul Hafiz Sheikh will present the budget in the National Assembly.
The focus of the upcoming Budget will be enhancing revenues to minimize dependence on the external finances, cutting down the government expenditures, enhancing productivity through a new growth strategy and job creation, will feature in the upcoming budget. The total volume of the budget will be around 3000 billion while provinces will get 1,421 billion, 57.5 percent under Nation Finance Commission (NFC).
The budget will also address the issues of energy generation, social sector development and revenue enhancement, besides reforms will also be introduced for improving governance and boosting private sector investment. Amid domestic and international challenges, the realistic GDP growth target will be 4.3 percent while in the outgoing fiscal year 3.7 percent GDP growth is likely to be achieved against the target of 4.2 percent.
The growth in FY 2012-13 will be achieved through improvement in productivity and competitiveness, reforms in the markets, promoting cities as regional clusters, improve connectivity, reforming the civil service, institutions and Public Sector Entities, harnessing potential of youth and embarking on result-based management.
The agriculture growth during the upcoming fiscal year 2012-13 is projected at 4 percent, manufacturing at 4.1 percent while the services sector will grow at 4.6 percent.
This year, the budget will also focus on infrastructure, human capital, promotion of investments and exports and agriculture sector development. Emphasis will also be made to normalize agriculture activity and Maintaining good performance in services sector. The government is keen to provide relief to the people in the budget and has taken comprehensive measures to achieve this objective.
The National Economic Council (NEC) has already approved a development budget of Rs.873 billion Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP) for the year 2012-13, with Rs.360 billion as Federal component and Rs.513 billion provincial component. Under the PSDP allocations, priority would be given to the completion of projects, maximum utilization of foreign loans and balanced development while only high priority new projects would be introduced. Out of the total Rs.513 billion allocations for the provinces, Rs. 206 have been allocated for the Punjab, Rs.188 billion for Sindh, Rs.78 billion for Khyber Pakhtunkhwa while Rs.41 billion has been allocated for Balochistan.
Meanwhile the government has also finalized alternate strategies to frustrate opposition’s plans of sabotaging annual event of fiscal policy.
Informed sources told that with consultation process for the upcoming budget in the final stage, Finance Minister Dr Abdul Hafeez Shaikh is likely to restrict his budget speech to unusual 15-minute duration in view of expected strong protest from Pakistan Muslim League-N over political controversy surrounding the prime minister.
Expecting rowdy scenes from the main opposition party amid “Go Gilani Go” slogans, the finance ministry officials said the finance minister would give ‘a comprehensive but brief’ budget speech covering 4-year achievements of the present government and budgetary measures for the next year.
