Govt tried to minimize impact of Covid-19 on economy by pursuing a prudent strategy: Hammad Azhar.

ISLAMABAD -- Minister for Industries and Production Barrister Muhammad Hammad Azhar says the government has tried to minimize the impact of Covid-19 on the economy by pursuing a prudent strategy.

Winding up discussion on the Finance Bill 2020-21 in the Senate on Wednesday, he said that presenting a tax free budget while enhancing allocations for development as well as education and health budgets in the face of coronavirus shows the leadership of Prime Minister Imran Khan.

The Minister said that the all the economic indicators were showing positive trends prior to the break out of the pandemic. He said we reduced the current account deficit by 73 percent, trade deficit 31 percent and fiscal deficit to 3.8 percent in the first nine months of current fiscal year. He said it is also for the first time that our primary surplus remained positive. During this period FBR collections were also witnessing 17 percent growth and non-tax revenue saw an increase of 134 percent. He said Foreign Direct Investment also doubled from one billion dollars to two billion dollars and refunds of 250 billion rupees were also made to the businesses.

Hammad Azhar said the pandemic inflicted a blow to our economy as elsewhere in the world. To cope with the situation the government gave a mega stimulus package and under this the payments were made to all the provinces. 75 billion rupees were allocated for bulk purchases of Personal protective equipment'. He said Pakistan today is not only producing PPEs to other countries. He said we directly provided to all the provinces. He said cash assistance of twelve thousand rupees each has been given to...