Infant Industries To Get Boost After Implementation Of Budget's Agricultural Reforms: Experts

All the infant and small industries primarily depended on the agriculture sector will get enormous boost after implementation of the agricultural reforms and projects announced by the government in the budget 2018-19, which will largely benefit farmers and people.

PESHAWAR, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 22nd May, 2018 ) :All the infant and small industries primarily depended on the agriculture sector will get enormous boost after implementation of the agricultural reforms and projects announced by the government in the budget 2018-19, which will largely benefit farmers and people. The growth of many small industries in Pakistan such as sugar, cotton, leather, food and fertilizers are directly linked with agriculture and economic development, which will get upward boost following implementation of the agriculture reforms introduced by the government in its record sixth budget for fiscal year 2018-19.

The agriculture reforms is being appreciated in KP, Fata and being termed it a leap step forward to make the country's self-sufficient in food sector besides ensuring sustained economic development. The economics and agriculture experts besides farmers have lauded the Federal Government's agriculture reforms and termed it a significant step forward towards bolstering of agriculture production, infant industries, enhancing capacity of agriculture institutes and agriculture research in the country. Senior economist and agriculture expert, Professor Dr.

Muhammad Naeem told APP that all the industries especially infant and small industries will largely benefited from the agriculture reforms, ultimately bring economic prosperity and development Increase in agricultural production and rise in the per-capita income of the rural community, together with the industrialisation and urbanisation, lead to an increased demand in industrial production, he remarked. Dr Naeem welcomed announcement of a number of incentives including agriculture credits, exemption of customs duty on harvesters, removal of GST on imported sunflower and canola seeds in budget and termed the budget pro farmers and people friendly.

By encouraging infant industries, he said, market competition would exist and monopoly of large industries will end. He appreciated the government's announcement for an establishment of Agriculture Research Support Fund (ARSF) with an initial allocation of Rs5billion and termed it a need of the hour.

The fund would immensely help provide financial grants for research and development of modern plant and seed varieties for achieving higher crop yields in the country. The fund will be jointly managed by Finance Division and Ministry of National Food Security and Research, and beneficiaries would get first hand expertise's from these key institutions vital for increasing agriculture production on modern and scientific lines in the country. Commending another proposal of the Government regarding setting up of a separate Agriculture Technology Fund (ATF) with an initial allocation of Rs5billion in the budget, Dr Naeem said it was a landmark decision of the Federal Government that will bolster indigenization of agriculture technology in the country.

The Finance Division and Ministry of National Food Security and Research would jointly manage ATF that will closely work with partner organizations to promote indigenization of agriculture technology in Pakistan. He said potential of agriculture sector was imperative for sustainable higher GDP growth, promote perfect competition among companies and services units and discourage monopoly in open market. "Pakistan has all the potential to achieve self-sufficiency in food, which can be achieved by encouraging investment in agricultural technology, research and cropping patterns besides financially helping farmers and growers in issues related to climate change' mitigation and labour tenure practices. He said a transition of agriculture sector can only be achieved by moving away from subsidy driven approach to a market driven dynamic policies. "The business of subsidies should be left to provincial governments by focusing on building a conducive policy environment for promotion of research and development, productivity enhancement, market access, improvements in management, labour practices and effective use of technology," he remarked. Sumbul Riaz, an economic and financial expert also praised PML-N government's incentives and projects in the budget in which maximum relief was provided to all. She praised the announcement of the Government that there will be a reduced uniform GST rate of 2% on all fertilizers from July 1, adding it will eliminate distortions in tax regime and further reduce fertilizer prices and promote use of balanced nutrients, thus ultimately benefiting farmers and growers. She said the government had significantly reduced sales tax on fertilizer from a high of 17% to 4% on DAP, 5% on Urea and 9-11% on others and has proposed to reduce GST on agriculture machinery from the current 7 percent to 5 percent besides giving further concessions in the taxes and duties for the dairy and livestock sector. Sumbul said producing of high quality and large quantities of cotton was imperative for economic growth and exports and without it the dreams of sustained economic progress was impossible. In terms of climatic conditions, water and soil availability, she said Pakistan enjoy a natural advantage of being ranked 5th largest cotton producing country in the world, but was unfortunately comparatively in low position in terms of exports textile products because of an inappropriate attention to agriculture sector by the past regimes. She said we need to improve both quality and productivity of agriculture crops to achieve higher exports values, adding great responsibilities rest on provincial governments to formulate and enforce a policy to halt conversion of cotton growing area into sugarcane growing area.