Tax, energy reforms Pakistan's top priority, says FinMin Aurangzeb

ISLAMABAD: Federal Minister for Finance and Revenue, Senator Muhammad Aurangzeb on Thursday said that the government prioritized the tax and energy reforms and over all structural reforms also in cards to achieve the sustainable economic growth in the county, ARY News reported.

He said that currently, the country is going through a phase of economic stability and the government will be led on the path of sustainable economic growth with a good economic foundation.

Federal Minister for Finance and Revenue, Senator Muhammad Aurangzeb said this while addressing the Inaugural Ceremony of Buna -Raast Connectivity Project Implementation Phase here.

He said that all economic indicators, including foreign reserves, workers remittances, policy rates, exchange rate, revenue collection and twins deficits including Current Account are going positive, leading towards growth and adding that foreign investors are showing confidence on the Pakistan economy.

Aurangzeb said that “We have two months import cover and the exchange rate is also stable.” He said that during the last two months, foreign companies and potential investors are showing their interest to make investment in the different sectors of the economy.

The minister said that the government is working on the digital economy and through the digitization of the economy, “We prioritize documenting the local economy.”

He said that because of prudent economic policies of the government and through reforms and administrative measures the country received the $3 billion workers’ remittances in the last month of July 2024.

Aurangzeb said the government prioritized the tax and energy reforms and over all structural reforms also in cards to achieve the sustainable economic growth in the county. The minister said that “Buna -Raast Connectivity Project” project is an exemplary project between Pakistan and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), which is also a huge source for legal transaction of money and an evolved digital economy in the country.

He said that Pakistan also endorsed the KSA’s government vision 2030 and learnt a lesson from this economic vision for sustainable economic growth in Pakistan.Buna is the cross-border payment system operated by the Arab Regional Payments Clearing and Settlement Organization “ARPCSO,” which is owned by The Arab Monetary Fund “AMF.”

Buna aim to enable financial institutions and central banks in the Arab region and beyond to send and receive payments in local currencies as well as key international currencies in a safe, cost-effective, risk-controlled, and transparent environment.

Buna offers participants modern payment solutions that comply with international standards, principles, and compliance requirements.

The Raast SBP ‘Raast’ Instant Payment System is a transformational initiative that is built on state-of-the art international standard ISO 20022 and promises to be simple, free, fast, interoperable, and a secure payment option for customers.

The SBP launched the second use case of Raast i.e. Person-to-Person (P2P) payments in February 2022. Till date, around 34 million RAAST IDs have been created by customers having performed more than 270 million transactions amounting to around PKR 5.5 trillion (around USD 19 billion).