NA Body Recommended Measures To Develop Economy On Sustainable Grounds

The National Assembly's Standing Committee on Finance, Revenue and Economic Affairs was given several suggestions by the economic experts on devising a policy

ISLAMABAD, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 07th Nov, 2017 ) :The National Assembly's Standing Committee on Finance, Revenue and Economic Affairs was given several suggestions by the economic experts on devising a policy and implementation mechanism to develop economy on sustainable basis.

The committee, which met under the chairmanship of Qaisar Ahmed Sheikh, was attended by its member, economic experts and officials from Ministry of Finance, State Bank of Pakistan and other relevant organizations.

On the occasion, renowned economic expert and former bureaucrat, Saeed Qureshi suggested that the government should follow the World Bank's index of ease of doing business to help promote sustained growth.

He also suggested for commissioning a study on issue of One-Window saying we had been talking about the facility for last 50 years but failed to do it so far. He also suggested for removal of business irritants.

On the occasion, former Chairman Federal Bureau of Statistics, Abdullah Yusuf, highlighted the issues of tax gap and urged for comprehensive tax policy. He was of the view that the tax collection does not commensurate with the total potential, arguing that non-documented economy was one of the reason for this gap.

He urged for systematization through automation and cited example of Chili where the tax authorities had made tremendous progress in evaluating the actual tax of the taxpayers. He said that manufacturing sector of Pakistan was contributing 21 percent to GDP but its tax share in taxes was 66 percent compared to tax share of 33 percent by service sector which shares 58 percent to GDP.

Similarly, he added that agriculture, which contributes 21 percent to GDP contributes less than one percent to tax. He said that there were countries were the tax to GDP ratio was almost 50 percent, citing examples of Norway and Sweden.

He said that it was critical to take these measures but these have to be taken, sooner the better. Speaking on the occasion, another economic expert, Shabbir Ahmed said that improving quality of civil servants would serve the purpose and help put the country's economic policies on sustainable path.

Other experts also suggested many other measures both on policy side and implementation to help develop sustainable economy. Earlier, the committee disposed of An Eradication of Riba Bill 2015 after the finance ministry concluded that the current the government was working towards promoting the Islamic banking in the country and it was not feasible to eradicate the current banking system in one- go.

The committee also gave go ahead to the finance ministry to repeal the Establishment of Federal Bank for Cooperatives and Regulations of Cooperatives Banking (Repeal) Bill 2017 as well as the House Building Finance Corporation (Repeal) Bill. However, the committee was of the view that these bills should be repealed only of there was no pending liability.