Daily Times

KARACHI: The business community, expressing mixed reaction over the Federal Budget 2017-18 – announced by the Finance Minister Senator Ishaq Dar on Friday – has termed it an “election budget” that was “comparatively better”.

Siraj Qasim Teli, former president of KCCI, terming the budget as balanced has said that change was visible in the fifth and last budget of the incumbent government that could be due to election and court affairs. “Agriculture sector has been given more incentives which indicates that this is election budget,” Teli commented. Zubair Motiwala, former president of KCCI, noted that the burden of Rs 500 billion new taxes imposed by the government will be felt somewhere. “Government has attempted to avoid further burdening poor segment of society. The turnover tax has been substantially increased,” he observed. Haroon Farooqi, former president of KCCI, observed that the government presented an election budget. “Landlords have been awarded. The government has realised that pressurising filers is useless,” Farooqi viewed.

Abdullah Zaki, chairman of Pakistan Soap Manufacturers Association, said that duty-free import of all machinery should have been allowed, as it would be used to improve production, enhance exports and boost employment opportunities. He also sought import of all kind of raw material without import duty.

However, Atiq Mir, chairman of All Karachi Tajir Itehad, was disappointed by the federal budget, who called it “anti-poor and pro-elite”. Mir viewed that the elite class of the country had been awarded has been awarded through the budget which covers interests of feudal lords and capitalists. “Debt servicing of interest based loans has been given priority”, he resented.

Waheed Ahmed, Patron in chief of All Pakistan fruit and vegetable Exporters and Importers and Merchant Association also expressed disappointment of horticulture sector saying that the promises made during the announcement of trade policy were not honored. “We were assured that relief will be announced through federal budget but it did not materialized”, Ahmed noted.

He said the sector is facing problems of rising costs of input and impact of environmental changes which has rendered competition in the international market tougher. ” We had sought 7 percent financial support on export invoice value and imposition of income tax on FOB value instead of C&F value but both have been ignored in the federal budget”, Ahmed lamented.

To give FPCCI’s official reaction on the federal budget, Zubair F Tufail, president FPCCI has called a press conference today (Saturday).