Pakistan meets major conditions set by IMF for loan programme
Business
The provinces collected Rs442 billion in taxes against the target of Rs376 billion
ISLAMABAD (Dunya News) – Pakistan has successfully met the major conditions set by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for the $7 billion loan programme in the first six months of the current financial year.
The Ministry of Finance has released the details of the expenditures and revenues for July-December 2024, depicting that Pakistan has achieved the key conditions.
As per the report, Pakistan has achieved the target form primary budget surplus as it reached Rs3,600 billion, exceeding the target of Rs2,900 billion. Similarly, the four provinces provided a surplus budget of Rs776 billion against the target of Rs750 billion.
The provinces collected Rs442 billion in taxes against the target of Rs376 billion. They are expected to generate more revenue due to recently approved tax on agricultural income.
However, the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has missed the target for revenue collection as it faced a shortfall of Rs384 billion.
It collected Rs5,624 billion against the target of Rs6,009 billion during first six months of the running fiscal year.
During this period, it also failed to achieve the target set for the Tajir Dost Scheme as it collected only Rs23.4 billion in this category.
The report further revealed that the federal government's net revenue stood at Rs5,887 billion while the expenditures exceeded Rs8,200 billion, resulting in a budget deficit of Rs2,313 billion in the first six months.
During the same period, the government paid Rs5,141 billion in wake of interest on loans, while only Rs164 billion were spent on federal development projects.
