ISLAMABAD
Prime Minister Imran Khan has said that the country’s population can be turned into a real asset by bringing them into the formal economy through digitisation.
The prime minister said this while addressing the launching ceremony of Pakistan’s first instant person to person payment system ‘Raast’ on Tuesday.
The prime minister said that Raast will facilitate the common man to do their transactions through cell phones, besides it will also help improve the saving rates.
He said, “Technology is the way through which we can enhance our saving rates as well as tax to GDP ratio to take the country forward. We are also using technology in the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) in order to trace those who are not paying taxes regardless of lavish lifestyle.”
Khan reaffirmed the commitment to lift the people out of poverty, saying, “If we succeed in it, it will be the present government’s big achievement.”
The prime minister also directed the governor State Bank of Pakistan to establish a special cell to further facilitate the overseas Pakistanis. He said, “Overseas Pakistanis are our biggest asset and we need to further facilitate them.”
Appreciating the efforts of SBP to facilitate people over the banking system, he said the common man often hesitated in visiting the banks, stressing that steps at ‘bottom up’ would bring the commoners into formal economy by easing their modes of payments and transactions through opening of accounts via Raast.
The prime minister said the performance of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf government would be judged in the year 2023 on the basis of its measures to reduce poverty. The UNDP report had placed Khyber Pakhtunkhwa as the only province in the country where the PTI’s government during its first term had successfully reduced poverty, he added.
The prime minister said due to such achievement, the people in KPK voted for the PTI in the 2018 elections. He further opined that it would be a great success of his government to lift the people out of poverty.
The Covid pandemic has affected the world population alike but the government in Pakistan took measures to save its people from the economic meltdown and inflation, he further said.
