Pakistan’s economy requires immediate reforms to overcome the challenges because any more delay in initiating much-needed sector-specific reforms would further aggravate the situation. This was the upshot of the presentation given by the Chief Economist USAID Thomas Morris on the state of Pakistan’s economy here at the Lahore Chamber of Commerce and Industry on Tuesday. The LCCI President Irfan Qaiser Sheikh, Senior Vice President Kashif Younis Meher, Vice President Saeeda Nazar, former Presidents Iftikhar Ali Malik and Mian Muzaffar Ali also spoke on the occasion and threw light on various sectors of economy where Pakistan and the US could work jointly. The USAID Chief Economist indicated that the country’s |
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fiscal position was fast deteriorating as numbers suggest the gap was widening with every passing day. He highlighted that a major chunk of tax-payers money was being eaten away in defense expenditures, subsidies and interest payments. After spending huge sums of money on non-development expenditure, the government had left with no money to spend on hard pressing energy shortage and social development. He pointed out that in 2008-09 Pakistan was paying around Rs99,000 million on account of subsidies, but this figure jumped up to Rs284,827 million in 2010-11. He was of the view there was dire need to correct the energy mix of the country as any change in petroleum products prices adversely affect the government’s budgetary estimates.
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