Federal Minister for Finance Senator Ishaq Dar has said that foreign exchange reserves are at satisfactory level and it is expected to take up to US $ 15 billion before the target of September 30th.
He stated this while chairing a meeting with the representatives of Overseas Chambers of Commerce and Industry, Pakistan Business Council, American Business Council and Pakistan German Business Council, at the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) Head office here Friday.
Chairman FBR Tariq Bajwa briefed the finance minister in detail about the discussion he and other members of FBR had with the business representatives. He informed the finance minister that the proposals presented by them will be considered in the budget. The trade representatives said that they would welcome documentation of the economy and the measures to encourage local manufacturing.
They urged the finance minister to incentivize taxpayers and appropriate measures should be taken on the refunds issue which is increasing the cost of their businesses.
The finance minister said that we inherited the economy in shambles and no international multilateral institution was willing to deal with Pakistan. He said that we have been extremely tight on our expenditure and in the last budget we imposed rupees 135 billion expenditure cut.
He added that in a short span of time our economic indicators have improved to a level where now we are able to be back in business with World Bank, Asian Development Bank and other financial institutions.
He assured the business community that their recommendations will be considered seriously and if possible we will include them in the next financial budget.