ISLAMABAD
\nFinance Minister Miftah Ismail said Thursday while addressing a press conference in Islamabad that the government was lifting the ban on all imports.
\nThe finance minister said that the ban on imports was being lifted on the condition of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), adding that the government was going to impose heavy taxes on imported goods.
\n\u201cIt is requirement of international community that there should be no ban so we are lifting ban on all products. But simultaneously the duties I am going to impose would not let these commodities to enter into Pakistan as finished goods,\u201d the minister said while addressing a press conference.
\nThe minister said RDs would be enhanced three times or to the maximum possible level and can go even upto 400 to 600 percent or more.
\nHe said that Prime Minister was not in favour of luxury products\u2019 imports, knowing his responsibility to provide essential and basic commodities to the people of the country.
\nHowever, he said ban was lifted to comply with IMF, international agreements and World Trade Organizations (WTO). However duties would be imposed on import of luxury food, shoes and all such things and even if anyone still wants to import they are free.
\nHe said that Pakistan was not having many dollars to spend on import of luxury items adding that the existing resources would be utilized to provide the people of the country with flour, wheat, cotton, edible oil instead of I-phones or luxury vehicle.
\nThe finance minister said Pakistan had long negotiations with the fund and the IMF board is scheduled to meet on August 29 wherein programme with Pakistan would be approved as the country had already fulfilled all conditions and had taken all prior actions demanded by the fund.
\nHe said, the $4 billion funding for improving country\u2019s exchange reserves has been arranged with the help of friendly countries including Saudi Arabia, Qatar and United Arab Emirates whereas China has also agreed to reroll $2 billion loans while Saudi Arabia also agreed to reroll its funds. So the funding requirement has been met, he added.
\nThe minister said that electricity tariff condition has also been complied, hence there would be no non-funding subsidies. Likewise, the minister said that government was expecting Rs42 billion from retail tax, however after the reversal of the decision, the government revised the target to Rs27 billion and the gap of Rs.15 billion would be bridged by imposing more tax on tobacco and cigarettes.
\nHe said Rs36 billion would be collected from Tobacco and cigarettes by imposing taxes. The tax on tier-2 cigarettes would be increased from Rs1850 to Rs2050 per 1000 cigarettes and tier-1 form Rs.5900 to Rs.6500 per 1000 cigarettes. In addition to this the green leaf Cess has been increased from Rs.10 per kg to Rs.380.
\nThe minister was of the view that the country\u2019 economy improving as Bloomberg in its report has termed Pakistani Rupee as the best performing currency in the world during August whereas the Pakistan Stock Exchange also remained best performing stock market in the world.
\nThe minister said that the government was adopting self-reliance policy to remain within its resources and curtail fiscal deficit and bring imports of the country to the level of exports plus remittance to check current account deficit. =DNA<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
ISLAMABAD Finance Minister Miftah Ismail said Thursday while addressing a press conference in Islamabad that the government was lifting the ban on all imports. The finance minister said that the ban on imports was being lifted on the condition of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), adding that the government was going to impose heavy taxes […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":278061,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2],"tags":[3681,337,6374,2416],"class_list":{"0":"post-278093","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-top-news","8":"tag-announces","9":"tag-ban","10":"tag-imports","11":"tag-miftah-ismail"},"yoast_head":"\n