Govt has overcome two major deficits: Abdul Hafeez Sheikh

Adviser on Finance Abdul Hafeez Sheikh has said that the government has overcome the fiscal and trade deficits.

While addressing a press conference along with Chairman Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) Shabbar Zaidi in Islamabad he said that the current account deficit has been reduced to the record level. For this, government struck agreements with the friendly countries as well as IMF, the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank.

Abdul Hafeez Sheikh said that trade deficit witnessed a decrease of 35% fiscal deficit thirty six percent during the first quarter of current fiscal year.

The adviser further said the present government has significantly cut its expenditures. Civil government expenditures was cut by 40 billion rupees, while a tax target of Rs 5500 billion was set.

He said that government has a Rs. 1,200 billion target for non-tax revenue, but I want to share the good news with you that we will increase this by Rs400bn and are confident to take it to Rs. 1,600bn.

He said that the results of the assistance provided by the government to the export sector were starting to become visible, particularly in the production of the export sector.

He said that the results of the difficult decisions taken by the government are slowly becoming visible and international financial organizations like the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank as well as foreign investors were now giving positive statements about Pakistan.

He said that we are working in union to ensure that Pakistan comes out of FATF grey list at the earliest.