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CPDI BUDGET WATCH
Fortnightly Budget News Alerts
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PA passes resolution to extend Ord during budget session
The News (June 25, 2020) |
| LAHORE: The successful parliamentary strategy of Punjab Minister for Law Parliamentary Affairs Raja Basharat saved the Punjab Health Department on Wednesday from a legal crisis. The previously enacted Punjab Infections and Diseases Prevention and Control Ordinance 2020 was coming to an end. In the running session of the Punjab Assembly, Raja Basharat presented… Read More |
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Economic Crisis in Pakistan: 2020-21 Handmade Budget of IMF
The moderndiplomacy.eu (June 25, 2020) |
| Coronavirus (COVID-19) is one of the most dangerous and disaster able virus in the world during contemporary times, which has been affecting most of the developed and developing countries. Although having all equipment’s to Europe and USA. But, has losing its battle to control on this coronavirus. When it is stretched in Wuhan, China and the whole world was in frivolous behavior toward… Read More |
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KP’s budget deficit likely to persist in FY22, FY23
The Pakistan Today (June 24, 2020) |
| Peshawar: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) Finance Department has forecasted that the budgets for FY22 and FY23 will see deficits of Rs72 billion and Rs63 billion respectively. For FY22, the KP government is expected to earn Rs871.70 billion in revenues. The KP Finance Department estimates the provinces expenditures at Rs 944.80 billion for FY22, leading to a budget deficit of Rs72.29 billion… Read More |
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Budget and CPEC
The Nation (June 24, 2020) |
| Concerns over Pakistan’s national budget are high at the time, as Pakistan’s growth rate has been declining for the past two years and its effects are being felt to a large extent in the lives of ordinary people. Apart from this, the coronavirus has also caused a strange calamity not only for Pakistan but the whole world, which it has never faced before. The epidemic of coronavirus is affecting the socio… Read More |
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US says Pakistan budget lacked transparency
The Express Tribune (June 23, 2020) |
| ISLAMABAD: A new report by the United States has said that Pakistan’s budget lacked minimum fiscal transparency and it also did not adequately disclose all debt information amid a sharp surge in government’s contingent liabilities in outgoing fiscal year. The 2020 Fiscal Transparency Report by the State Department comes amid 21.5% increase in sovereign guarantees during first nine months… Read More |
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Defence Budget
The News (June 23, 2020) |
| Myth number 1: The defence budget eats up the lion’s share of our total budgetary expenses. Not true. In Budget 2020-21, ‘Defense Affairs and Services’ has been allocated Rs1,289 billion out of total budgetary expenses of Rs7,295 billion. What this means is that defence comprises 17.67 percent of the total expenses and 82.33 percent of all government expenses are non-defence related… Read More |
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Economists point out myths and facts about Pakistan’s defence budget
The Pakistan Today (June 23, 2020) |
| LAHORE: Amid Leading economists of Pakistan have pointed out a number of myths and facts about Pakistan’s defence budget. Farrukh Saleem, an economist and financial analyst, said that the first myth is that the defence budget eats up the lion’s share of the country’s total budgetary expenses. “In budget 2020-21, ‘Defence Affairs and Services’ has been allocated Rs1,289 billion out of the… Read More |
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Budget focuses on provision of relief to poor, say treasury lawmakers
The Pakistan Today (June 22, 2020) |
| ISLAMABAD: Government lawmakers told the National Assembly (NA) on Monday that the budget for the fiscal year 2020-21 was focused on providing relief to the poor and deserving people of the country. Participating in the budget debate, Raja Kurram Nawaz said that adequate funds were earmarked in the federal budget for the poor and deserving people as was evident from Ehsaas Programme… Read More |
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Pakistan increases country’s defence budget despite economic fallout amidst COVID-19
The Newdelhitimes (June 22, 2020) |
| The government of Pakistan has announced a 2020-21 defence budget of PKR1.29 trillion (USD7.81 billion). According to budgetary documents the new allocation represents a 12% increase over the original defence budget for 2019-20 and a 5% increase over the revised expenditure for that year. According to reports in Pakistani media, the budget document shows that the defence… Read More |
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Why we do not cover the budget
The Pakistan Today (June 21, 2020) |
| If you are a consumer of news in Pakistan, you may be vaguely familiar with the idea that the day the federal government announces its budget is one of the biggest economic stories of the year. We at Profit, as a leading business publication in the country, may well be expected to cover it. But we do not, and the decision not to do so is no accident, but a deliberate one on our part… Read More |
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Opposition lambasts Sindh budget
The Express Tribune (June 21, 2020) |
| KARACHI: Terming the new provincial budget a ‘jugglery of words,’ opposition members in the Sindh Assembly lashed out at the Sindh government for its failure to mobilise development funds and complete vital schemes in the province on Saturday.At the first assembly session after the budget’s presentation, Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan’s Rashid Khilji dismissed… Read More |
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Rs 500 million allocated for agriculture in budget
The App.com (June 20, 2020) |
| QUETTA, Jun 20 (APP):Balochistan Minister for Finance Zahoor Buledi Saturday said Rs 500 million had been allocated for agriculture sector in the financial budget year-2020-21 which was Rs 404 million in budget of 2019-20. He said 181 teams had been formulated to prevent the attack of locust across the province through carrying anti-spray in the areas in order to … Read More |
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Defence budget increased to address food security: Hafeez Shaikh
The Pakistan Today (June 20, 2020) |
| ISLAMABAD – Adviser to the Prime Minister on Finance Dr Abdul Hafeez Shaikh said that the defence budget has been addressed in order to tackle the upcoming food security challenges. He also lauded the provinces for making their budgets on the basis of their own estimates of the security challenges instead of relying on the forecasting done by the federal government, even though defence is a federal subject… Read More |
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BUDGET 2020-21: Rs923bn KP budget focuses on health, tax relief
The Dawn (June 20, 2020) |
| PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government on Friday unveiled the Rs923 billion budget for the financial year 2020-21 which focuses on improvement in the health sector and tax relief for businesses hit hard by the Covid-19 pandemic. KP Minister for Finance Taimur Saleem Jhagra presented the budget in the provincial assembly. He told Dawn that fundamentally the biggest challenge… Read More |
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Fitch says Pakistan’s budget goal overly ambitious
The News (June 20, 2020) |
| KARACHI: Global credit rating agency Fitch Ratings said Pakistan fiscal targets for the next fiscal year will be challenging to meet amid the economic shock and health crisis associated with the coronavirus pandemic. “Public finances are a key credit weakness, as we noted even before the health crisis took hold when we affirmed Pakistan’s rating at ‘B-’ with a stable outlook in January 2020,” Fitch… Read More |
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AJK unveils Rs139.5 billion balanced budget
The Express Tribune (June 19, 2020) |
| Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) government on Thursday announced a Rs139.5 billion balanced budget for the next fiscal year 2020-21 with a development outlay of Rs24.5 billion. Minister for Health and Finance Dr Najeeb Naqi presented the budget and the revised estimates for current fiscal year in the legislative Assembly session being held under strict standard operating… Read More |
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K-P unveils Rs923b tax-free budget
The Express Tribune (June 19, 2020) |
| PESHAWAR: The Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) government on Friday unveiled a balanced and tax-free budget of Rs923 billion for the next fiscal year 2020-21 with special focus on reviving the economy crippled by the Covid-19 pandemic and protecting investment in service deliveries, particularly the health sector. Finance Minister Taimur Saleem Jhagra.. Read More |
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Pakistan slashes budget for Belt and Road Initiative projects
The asia.nikkei.com (June 19, 2020) |
| KARACHI — Pakistan has chopped a third of its contribution to the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a high profile component of China’s massive Belt and Road Initiative, setting back some flagship projects backed by China’s President Xi Jinping. With the economic damage caused by the COVID-19 pandemic still being tallied, the annual CPEC allocation has been reduced from $241… Read More |
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An ordinary budget
The News (June 19, 2020) |
| Extraordinary situations demand extraordinary responses. We are facing an extraordinary situation due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the current economic crisis and the locust attacks. The government has to fight on three different fronts. Covid-19 led to an unprecedented public health crisis and aggravated the already existing economic crisis. Even though the government denies the… Read More |
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Not quite a corona budget
The Pakistan Today (June 18, 2020) |
| It was one of the paradoxes of the 2020-2021 Budget that the man responsible for it, PM’s Finance Adviser Dr Hafeez Sheikh, did not seem to believe the revenue collection figure of Rs 4.91 trillion would be met. At the traditional post-Budget press conference, he said the provinces were free to decide whether or not to follow the revenue collection figure in their own Budgets, depending on how much they… Read More |
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Covid-19 prompts over 16pc increase in provincial health budget
The Dawn (June 18, 2020) |
| KARACHI: In a bid to meet the challenge of Covid-19 in the province, the Sindh government has increased the allocation for the health sector by 16.1 per cent — from Rs114.4 billion to Rs132.88bn — in the provincial budget for financial year 2020-21. In addition to Rs132.88bn, Rs7bn has been allocated for nine vertical programmes, including polio control, AIDS, TB, thus making the total… Read More |
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Cleaning up the budget
The News (June 18, 2020) |
| The writer is a former adviser to the World Bank. Pakistan’s corona-related ‘lives and livelihood’ crisis is grave. One was hoping that the prime minister would make a clarion call, during the budget session, to all citizens, political parties and organs of state – similar to what President Kennedy made during his inaugural address. As a bold leader, Kennedy pivoted his address on the following… Read More |
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Sindh health sector gets a bump in deficit budget
The Express Tribune (June 17, 2020) |
| The Sindh government on Wednesday unveiled a Rs1,241.13 billion deficit budget for the next fiscal year 2020-21, cutting the development outlay and giving a priority to the health sector in the wake of ongoing coronavirus pandemic. Amidst noisy opposition protest, Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah, who also holds the portfolio of finance minister,… Read More |
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KP govt expected to present a budget deficit of Rs60bn
The Pakistan Today (June 17, 2020) |
| PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) government is likely to present a budget deficit of Rs60 billion due to non-payment of its dues amounting to billions of rupees by the federal government. According to reports, due to the economic downturn, the federal government is unable to pay the province its full share of the Net Hydel Profit (NHP), due to which… Read More |
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Pakistan’s textile sector rejects ‘unrealistic’ Budget 2020-21
The Express Tribune (June 16, 2020)
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| FAISALABAD: The condition of the textile industry will worsen amid a liquidity crunch and shrinking global business, and will lead to closure of industrial units, decline in exports and massive unemployment. Pakistan Hosiery Manufacturers Association (PHMA) Chairman Salamat Ali, in a statement, said the value-added textile export industry had rejected the federal budget… Read More |
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Pakistan budget 2020-21: The numbers don’t add up
The Orfononline.com (June 16, 2020) |
| For some years now, Pakistan’s economy has been in the throes of a slow meltdown. Like the previous two budgets, the third budget presented by the Imran Khan government on 12 June was supposed to be make or break, and quite like the preceding budgets, the current budget too will neither completely break nor make Pakistan; instead, Pakistan’s economy will remain in what is best described… Read More |
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‘Budget lacks reforms; targets too ambitious’
The Daily Times (June 15, 2020) |
| Leader of the business community and former President ICCI Shahid Rasheed Butt on Sunday said budget lacks reforms while revenue targets are too ambitious and incompatible with the ground realities. The mismatch between an economic slowdown and tax collection target of Rs4,900 billion to tackle an out of control budget deficit has unnerved business community… Read More |
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BUDGET 2020-21: Govt. tries to appease all stakeholders
The Express Tribune (June 15, 2020) |
| Industries Minister Hammad Azhar on Friday announced a Rs7.1 trillion budget in a bid to revive the stalled International Monetary Fund (IMF) programme, which both the opposition and experts termed unrealistic and full of internal contradictions. The government proposed primary deficit target – the total revenues excluding interest payments –at only 0.5% of gross domestic product (GDP)… Read More |
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Presidency budget slashed significantly
The Dawn (June 14, 2020) |
| ISLAMABAD: The overall budget of presidency has been cut by more than 60 per cent but those of the Supreme Court and Islamabad High Court have enhanced their expenditures for 2020-21, according to the budget document. The total budget of the President House was Rs992 million for the outgoing fiscal year but President Arif Alvi has reduced it by Rs597m, or 60.18 per cent… Read More |
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PTI government’s strategy for Budget 2020-21
The News (June 13, 2020) |
| The PTI-led government faces a delicate task in balancing its priorities 2020-21 amid an unprecedented crisis due to the coronavirus pandemic and other challenges arising from the government’s austerity measures in fiscal 2019-20. The following will be its key areas of focus next fiscal year. No new taxes were introduced in order to provide relief to the masses۔ Proposed tax concessions will prove effective… Read More |
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Budget FY21: Govt reduces subsidies despite Covid-19 impact
The Pakistan Today (June 13, 2020) |
| ISLAMABAD: The federal government on Friday announced the budget for the fiscal year 2020-21, revealing that subsidies have been reduced from Rs349.5 billion for the outgoing year to Rs209 billion for the upcoming year, despite the economic impact of the coronavirus outbreak on the masses. According to the budget documents, the government has allocated 59.33 per cent subsidy for WAPDA/PEPCO… Read More |
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