The Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) that met here on Tuesday with Finance Minister Senator Ishaq Dar accorded approval to the wheat procurement target of eight million tonnes for 2013-14 and extended the existing ban on the import of gold.
The Pakistan Agriculture Storage and Services Corporation (Passco) will procure 1.6 million tonnes and the remaining will be procured by the four provincial governments at the same support price of Rs1,200 per 40 kg.
The meeting also extended the ban till March 31 on import of gold and separated the gem stones from the gold and directed the Commence Ministry to immediately lift the ban on export of gem stones.
In the meeting, Ministry of Commerce had suggested that the quantity of gold should be reduced in one import transaction from 25 kg to 10 kg. At present there is a fine of 5 percent if importer imports gold and does not export the same quantity of gold after value addition in the shape of jewellery. It was observed that many importers imported the gold and did not export the same quantity after value addition rather they were involved in smuggling out of the gold to India which was why the ban on gold was imposed by the Nawaz government.
The official who was part of the meeting claimed that the ban on import of gold would be done away with before March 31 after gauging the sentiment of the ECC participants about the gold import issue.
The Commerce Ministry had also come up with its finding in the ECC which suggested that importers should get themselves registered afresh for importing gold and exporting the same after value addition. But importers are hesitant. However, Finance Minister Dar asked the Commerce Ministry to again come to ECC after detailed program to handle the issue with pragmatic approach.
Coming to wheat procurement issue, the official told that farmers community across the country wanted the increase in wheat support price over 1300 per 40 kg arguing that the input cost had increased manifold because of raise in prices of pesticides, electricity and fertilisers, but the Nawaz government did not honour the demand of the farmers and decided to maintain the wheat support price at existing level of Rs1200 per 40 kg.
Under the procurement plan, Punjab government will procure 4.5 million tonnes wheat from growers, Sindh 1.3 million tonnes, KPK 0.450 million tonnes, and Balochistan will procure 0.150 million tonnes.
According to the official, the participants of the ECC were told that current spell of rains would have positive impact on wheat growing areas and two more spells were due in the current month that would help achieve reasonable crop of wheat.
The ECC, however, the official disclosed, had deferred the summary of Commerce Ministry seeking import of livestock and dairy products from the 25 countries on which Pakistan had placed ban in 2001 on account of mad cow disease.
Commerce Ministry was of the view in the summary that World Animal Health Organisation had certified that the said 25 countries were now included in the list of countries where mad cow disease was no more there, so the import of livestock and dairy products should be allowed from the said countries. Dar responded saying he had no objection to import livestock from the said countries if the price of Rs200 per kg meat got reduced.
The 25 countries mainly include USA, New Zealand, some countries of EU and South America. At present, Pakistan imports livestock and dairy products from Australia.
On the issue of sugar export, the dispute between Commerce Ministry and State Bank of Pakistan emerged over the data discrepancies about sugar export as ministries of commerce and industries were of the view that country had exported 500,000 tonnes of sugar that had also been verified by PSMA (Pakistan Sugar Mills Association) whereas State Bank of Pakistan and finance minister were adamant that export of 500,000 tonnes had not completed yet.
So the decision was made that the figures about shipments of sugar exports needed to be reconciled between Commerce Ministry and central bank of Pakistan. The Commerce Ministry has also been directed to come up with sugar export policy and Ministry of Industries has been asked to come up with concrete measures needed to be adopted for the better export policy.
However, Ministry of Industries failed to impress upon the ECC on its review about performance of Large Scale Industries as in the review, there were no recommendations mentioned to increase the growth in LSM sector owing to which ECC asked Ministry of Industries to come up with recipes on how to increase the growth in LSM.
However, the ECC was informed by the Ministry of Industries that the performance of LSM had improved to a great extent telling that LSM growth stood at 6.8 percent in July-December 2013-14 as compared to 2.3 percent in the same period last year. The ECC was informed that there is 78 percent increase in sugar production and 28 percent increase in fertiliser sector.
It was also told the growth in auto industries declined by 2 percent apparently because of import of used cars and increase in sales tax on tractors. Ministry of Industries in its review also pinpointed that the growth in manufacturing bicycles had declined by 14.8 percent explaining the reason that the lower middle class had switched over to buying motorbikes and this could be gauged by the fact that growth in motorbike had tremendously increased. The Ministry also told that growth in paper and board increased by 7.5 percent, jute goods 16 percent and cotton and yarn by 2.18 percent.
Earlier, the finance minister in his opening remarks said that after coming into power the government of PML-N, in line with its manifesto, introduced several structural reforms in the economic sector to overcome the challenges it confronted. He said that today, thanks to Allah, all economic indicators were on the positive trend. Growth is moving up, inflation is going down, foreign exchange reserves are growing, value of rupee is appreciating and the stock market is moving up. He added that the economic scenario of the country was moving in the right direction and we would be able to contribute in prosperity of our people.
Source:- thenews.com.pk
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