Saudi Arabia to provide $3.6 billion deferred oil facility: Tarin

JHELUM: Saudi Arabia has agreed to provide a $3.6 billion deferred oil payment facility, a senior government official said on Friday.

Talking to newsmen during the inauguration ceremony of Track and Trace Facility established at the Jhelum factory of Pakistan Tobacco Company, Federal Finance and Revenue Minister Shaukat Tarin said: “Saudi Arabia will provide us $150 million credit facility on [a] monthly basis for the purchase of oil for two years, which is approximately $3.6 billion. To a question, he said: “Saudi Arabia will give cash to us and it’s up to us to buy oil from wherever we want.”

Regarding inflationary pressure, the finance minister said it shows that the economy is doing well and 38 per cent revenue growth in the first quarter is evidence of it.

Tarin said: “The economic growth is creating demand and increasing inflation, which we want to control.”

Earlier, the finance minister said the tax-to-GDP ratio of the country is in the range of 8 per cent to 12 per cent for the last many years. To achieve sustainable economic growth, the country’s GDP has to grow at the rate of 8 per cent to 10 per cent, he added.

The introduction of facilities such as Track and Trace Facility will reduce interaction between the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) and the taxpayer, which will reduce the element of corruption and tax evasion, Tarin said and congratulated the Pakistan Tobacco Company for introducing this state-of-the-art facility.

PTC managing director Syed Ali Akbar said that illicit trade of counterfeit and smuggled cigarettes is causing a loss of Rs70 billion to the national exchequer. British American Tobacco, the parent company of PTC, has shifted its cigarette manufacturing plants to Pakistan.

The PTC has already exported cigarettes worth Rs30 billion to Saudi Arabia and the Middle Eastern countries, he added.