ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif directed the authorities concerned to ensure effective and swift taxation and take strict measures to implement the strategy for revenue collection.

The prime minister, who chaired a review meeting on the country’s economic situation and digitization of the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR), said that the FBR’s digitization was a key component of the government’s agenda of economic reforms.

He appreciated the progress in the FBR’s digitization and lauded the efforts of the finance minister, state minister for finance, FBR chairman and secretary of finance.

Expressing satisfaction over the increasing fiscal space, he said the efforts of the economic team were coming to fruition.

The prime minister directed to complete the important tasks related to the FBR’s digitization by the end of this month.

He said that consequent to the crackdown against the smuggled fuel and reduction in petrol and diesel prices, the sale of petroleum products had reached 1.58 million metric tons – the highest ever during the last 25 months.

Instructing strict measures to curb petrol smuggling, Prime Minister Shehbaz said that 15% increase in the year-on-year sale of petroleum products showed the revival of the energy market.

He told the participants of the meeting that the timely decision for the sugar export brought in $500 million in remittance.

The meeting was told that the digitization of FBR’s value chain will be completed by March next year. The video analytics of the sugar industry has already been completed.

The prime minister called for early installation of the cement industry’s video analytics system.

It was told that work on system design for digital invoices has been completed and a mobile phone application for the digital invoicing of small businesses would be ready by the end of this month.

The participants were told that a new board of Pakistan Revenue Automation Ltd (PRAL) has been constituted and the organisation’s hardware and data center is also being upgraded. Besides, a central assessment unit for faceless customs assessment at Karachi Airport will start functioning by this yearend.