New Delhi, April 12 (IANS) The World Bank, the IMF, tax consultants, and commentators frequently assert that Pakistan suffers from a “tax gap” of seven to nine per cent of GDP.This gap in the shortfall between what is collected and what the law, ideally enforced, would yield, and the metric implies that this shortfall is a result of citizens not paying the taxes that are due from them. This narrative favours the tax collector and policymaker to deflect their own mistakes and increased coercion t…
Latest Dawn newspaper News & Updates
New Delhi, April 8 (IANS) While the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has asked Pakistan to remove subsidy on diesel as keeping prices of fuels below the market price violates the conditions that have been fixed for its loans to the cash-strapped country, Islamabad has, in brazen defiance of the norms, gone ahead with reducing the subsidy on petrol as well.“The prime minister’s Friday night dash to slash the petrol levy — undoing a massive price hike meant to fully pass on the global incre…
New Delhi, March 26 (IANS) As the Gulf conflict continues, the disruption in global fertiliser markets has again exposed the weaknesses of Pakistan’s farm input security, according to local media reports.While domestic capacity has insulated Pakistan from the worst effects of the urea shock, the same cannot be said for diammonium phosphate, where reliance on imports leaves the farm economy vulnerable, according to an article in the Dawn newspaper.Local production in the case of urea has helped…
New Delhi, March 19 (IANS) Pakistan’s fragile economy faces a major risk from the US-Israel war with Iran, as the country is heavily dependent on imported fuel and energy prices have shot up due the conflict which has spread across the Middle East countries.If the war drags on and energy prices remain elevated, Pakistan could once again find itself facing the kind of macroeconomic stress that has repeatedly disrupted its growth trajectory. Any volatility in global energy prices could hit GDP, …
New Delhi, March 6 (IANS) The mismanagement of Pakistan as a polity by its ruling elite has landed the country in periodic crises, which have been as much political as economic, and the resulting economic turmoil has necessitated 25 IMF programmes, each of which has compounded the country’s structural problems rather than providing a pathway to sustainable growth and development, a Pakistani media report said.The latest example is the ongoing programme where the IMF has endorsed the government…
New Delhi, Feb 12 (IANS) A structural issue responsible for perpetuating Pakistan’s dependence on the IMF is its failure to control expenditure, which has spiralled, at both federal and provincial levels, via salary increases far exceeding inflation for the civil, judicial, and military bureaucracies alongside expanding vehicle fleets, luxury housing, plush offices, overseas junkets, and discretionary budgets, often without mandates, sunset clauses or performance tests, according to an article…
New Delhi, Feb 2 (IANS) The Pakistan government has become addicted to IMF borrowing much like a drug addict and refuses to extricate itself from the self-made problem of creating cycles of foreign exchange shortages and bare sufficiency with IMF loans, according to a new report.These are accompanied by fiscal profligacy as seen in the government’s inability to contain needless expenditures and raise sufficient revenues to keep its debt at sustainable levels, according to an article by former …
New Delhi, Jan 21 (IANS) The current set of rulers in Pakistan has more autocratic powers than all set-ups after Gen Pervez Musharraf’s, but these only help it to survive; its ability to use them to usher progress is weak, as per a Pakistani media report.Painful IMF medicine was unleashed as well. It lowered inflation, but undercut growth. A recent national household survey shows that to recover from the cost of past inflation, strong growth is needed, which the IMF says may remain elusive even …
New Delhi, Jan 1 (IANS) The neglect of Karachi, a city that handles 76 per cent of Pakistan’s trade, is being seen as a major factor in slowing the growth rate of Pakistan’s economy to a crawl of less than 3 per cent. According to an article in Pakistan’s Dawn newspaper, without addressing Karachi’s acute water shortage and other infrastructure issues, Pakistan cannot achieve its growth targets.The article authored by Mohammad Younus Dagha, a former Federal Secretary, states that Karachi…