Post-budget presser: Aurangzeb addresses key concerns
Federal Minister for Finance and Revenue Muhammad Aurangzeb on Wednesday addressed the concerns of stakeholders regarding the budget for fiscal year 2025-26 presented before the National Assembly (NA) a day ago.
'The tariff reform mentioned during the budget speech is very significant,' said Aurangzeb.
'Out of a total of 7,000 tariff lines, the government has decided to eliminate additional customs duty on 4,000 of them,' he said.
Aurangzeb said that the government wanted to provide maximum relief to the salaried class, but added, 'the reality is that we can only offer as much relief as our fiscal space permits.'
Earlier, reporters staged a boycott of the press conference after the government failed to hold a scheduled technical briefing on the Finance Bill.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif-led coalition government's Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb on Tuesday presented the federal budget 2025-26 to the parliament, with a total outlay of Rs17.573 trillion, targeting a GDP growth target of 4.2% against 2.7% in the outgoing year.
Aurangzeb termed the budget the start of a strategy to create a competitive economy and economic productivity to increase exports and fundamentally change the economy's DNA.
The government has set an inflation target of 7.5% for the next fiscal year. Regarding the fiscal deficit, the government projected a target of 3.9% of the GDP — or Rs5,037 billion — from the outgoing fiscal year's target of 5.9%.
The primary surplus is targeted at 2.4% of the GDP against the budgeted 2% in the current fiscal year, which has been revised to 2.2%.
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