Budget 2018: PML-N?s sixth budget envisages economic growth ahead of polls

ISLAMABAD: The incumbent government is going to make a history by presenting its sixth consecutive Federal Budget for the year 2018-19, with an estimated outlay of over around Rs 5 trillion, on Friday.It will be a hallmark of the PML (N) government to have presented six consecutive budgets during the five years of its democratic tenure from 2013-2018. The National Assembly has been summoned to meet on Friday, at 16:30 hours for presentation of the federal budget, official notification said.The budget will lend focus on improving economic growth, maintaining fiscal discipline, reducing non-development expenditures and boosting exports besides providing relief to the masses, promoting investment for job creation, treading the people’s friendly policies for over-arching socio-economic prosperity.Main focus in the budget would be on infrastructure and human resource development while the government was likely to enhance allocations for social safety net for providing maximum relief to vulnerable segment of the society, the notification said.It will also focus on social sector development and revenue enhancement measures, besides introducing reforms for improving governance and boosting private sector investment.On revenue side, the government would introduce measures for bringing improvement in the system of tax collection, broadening the tax base, and facilitation to tax payers, the official sources said and argued that a strong revenue generation would play a crucial role in achieving the targets for economic growth.From growth perspective, the federal budget will focus on generating over 6% gross domestic product growth (GDP), and for this purpose it will introduce some fiscal measures and policy initiatives.The budget would be balanced, focusing on economic stability and growth, as the government had taken feedback from all the stakeholders for preparing this document, they added.The document would reflect continuity of the government policies and no major change will be introduced.Since provision of relief to common masses is top priority, hence it was being prepared after extensive consultations with stakeholders including the business community, traders and chambers of commerce and industries, who all have provided valuable and constructive suggestions.Meanwhile, during the outgoing year (2017-18), the agriculture sector posted a growth of 3.81 percent, the industrial sector grew by 5.8 percent whereas exports also witnessed positive growth with inflation remaining single digit.The overall GDP growth during the outgoing year was 5.8 percent.