ISLAMABAD – The government today presented an economic reforms packageenvisaging revolutionary incentives and measures to encourage investment,exports, ease of doing business and strengthen important sectors of thenational economy.
Finance Minister Asad Umar presented the package through The FinanceSupplementary (Second Amendment Bill), 2019 before the National Assembly inIslamabad today.
The Finance Minister announced to reduce the tax for the small and mediumenterprises sector from 39 percent to twenty percent to encourage businessactivity by low income investors especially the youth.
The finance minister also announced to cut interest rate at theagricultural loans from 39 percent to 20 percent to bolster the agriculturesector.
The Minister said the Agri-loans have already witnessed twenty-two percentboost during the PTI governments’ first six months.
Asad Umar also announced to reduce income tax on housing schemes for lowincome people from 39 percent to 20 percent to encourage housing sectorunder Prime Minister’s project for construction of five million Houses forthe middle and lower middle classes of the society.
Touching upon the taxation sector, the Minister declared to abolishwithholding tax on banking deposits and transactions for the filers. Hesaid non-filers would now be allowed to purchase automobiles upto 1300cc.However, their tax rate will be enhanced to generate more revenue andencourage the people to become filers.
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To promote ease of doing business, Asad Umar declared that the businesscommunity will now be required to file their statements about withholdingtax only twice in a year from the previous practice of filling twelvestatements in a year.
Earlier, responding to the points of Opposition Leader Shahbaz Sharif onthe Sahiwal incident, Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi said that atransparent inquiry was conducted into the tragic Sahiwal incident througha joint investigation team.
He said prompt action has been taken against the concerned police officersby removing and suspending them from their positions. He said an FIR hasalso been registered against the officers involved in the encounter andtheir case will be taken up by an anti-terrorism court. He said unlike theprevious governments we did not protect the officers who abused the power.
At the outset of proceedings, the House offered fateha for the departedsoul of former Parliamentarian Malik Hakmeen Khan.
The House will now meet at 11 a.m. tomorrow.
