Senior economists, traders, businessmen and people of all walks of life Wednesday highly lauded the federal budget 2024-25 and termed it goal oriented with maximum relief provided to all sectors in the country. Dr Muhammad Naeem, former Chairman Economics Department, University of Peshawar told APP that Prime Minister Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif, Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb and their finance team deserved full credit and appreciation for presenting a goal-oriented budget despite prevailing economic and fiscal challenges. He appreciated the three-pronged strategy announced by the Finance Minister to reform the pension scheme in line with international best practices. He said after reforms in the pension scheme, the pension liability would be reduced considerably in the next three decades. Dr Naeem supported the proposal of launching a contributory pension scheme for new recruitment for which the government would deposit its share every month and praised the proposal of the pension fund. Dr Muhammad Naeem highly appreciated the strong 6.25 percent expansion in the agriculture sector of Pakistan as indicated by the Economic Survey of Pakistan 2023-24, which is the highest in 19 years. He said that it would help drive the country’s GDP by an expected 2.38 percent in financial year 2024-25 which means recovering from a contraction of 0.21 percent in the previous financial year. He said that per capita income has increased to $1.680 from $1.551 while inflation was down to 26 percent against 28 percent last year. He said it was possible due to bold economic, fiscal and monetary policies of the present elected government. Praising the govt’s courageous step in signing the nine-month stand-by agreement with the IMF, he said that it has brought the country to a better place today. “Pakistan is an agricultural country and we need to strengthen this vital sector by providing maximum facilities to the farmers.” Owing to the government better economic and fiscal policies, he said that significant reduction in current account deficit has been witnessed from an estimated $6 billion to around $200 million that was a positive sign for the national economy. Yousaf Sarwar, former President Sarhad Chamber of Commerce and Industry also welcomed the federal budget and declared it business and trade friendly with maximum facilities for all. To achieve sustainable economic growth, he said, “we need to curb electricity theft that caused an estimated Rs500 billion loss to the government kitty besides making negative effects on the industrial production. To provide maximum relief to the disadvantaged segments of society, the federal government has increased budgetary allocations for the Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP) up to Rs. 593 billion, registering 29 percent increase as compared to the last year. He said that time has come to think seriously about privatization of electricity distribution companies and complete overhauling the electricity distribution system in order to save this huge amount. “No country can make economic progress unless its exports increase manifolds,” he said, adding it was a good omen that the country’s exports have increased by 9.3 percent from July to March to $23 billion compared to $21.1 billion in the same period last year. Former ambassador Manzoorul Haq welcomed the increase in salaries and pension of the government employees in the budget and termed it a positive step that would help provide relief to them in the wake of high prices of daily used commodities and inflation. He also appreciated huge allocations in the budget for the development of merged tribal districts that would help erstwhile Fata on road to progress and development. Former Secretary Zahoor Khan, former Information Officer, Misal Khan, ex PST teacher, Riazul Haq, Pir Mouhammad Khan, construction contractor Irshad Ullah and others welcomed the federal budget and termed it historic, progressive and goal-oriented. They welcome the announcement of health insurance scheme for journalists and media workers under which 5,000 journalists and media workers would be given health insurance in first phase, while 10,000 more would get the facility under its second phase.