Expatriate Pakistanis can help resolve economic challenges: Arif Habib

 

KARACHI: Expatriate Pakistanis have huge savings and can help the country in resolving the economic challenges of widening current account deficit, Member Economic Advisory Council Arif Habib said on Thursday.

Talking to Geo News, the member of recently constituted 13-member Economic Advisory Council by the Prime Minister, stressed the need to encourage expatriate Pakistanis to invest in domestic sectors.

The widening in current account deficit is a major challenge which ballooned by 50 percent to $10.8 billion in first eight months of the current fiscal year.

He said that new advisory council had suggested measures for arresting the imbalances in the current account.

Arif Habib said that the planned amnesty for undocumented foreign assets would help in easing current account deficit. However, through a long-term policy, Pakistan needs to improve its exports to boost forex reserves.

He said that except for the current account deficit the economic growth of the country had moved in the right direction.

Arif Habib said that the exports had witnessed increase during the past couple of months. However, he stressed the need to improve ease of doing business.

There is a huge cost of utilities in the region, he said advising that there is need to reduce taxes on utilities in order to encourage investment.

There is a misconception that increasing the tax rate will increase the tax collection. He said that tax rates should be reduced in order to enhance economic activities and increase revenue collection, he added.

He said that these measures would not only help in GDP growth but also ease the current account deficit.