Key deliberations scheduled to finalise budget
With less than a month to present the next fiscal year’s budget, the government is contemplating holding meetings of the Annual Plan Coordination Committee and the National Economic Council on May 23 and June 1, respectively, to finalise over Rs900bn worth of federal Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP). And even before these events, representing both the Centre and its federating units, the federal government would hold another two important meetings this week. These include a meeting of the National Accounts Committee to finalise national accounts to quantify the performance of various economic sectors during this fiscal year. Another one will be a special session of the federal cabinet to clear the budget strategy paper for the next fiscal year envisaging more than Rs1 trillion worth of subsidies, mostly for the energy sector, about 3.5pc GDP growth rate, about 21pc inflation and more than Rs9tr of revenue target for the Federal Board of Revenue.