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ISLAMABAD: Government is committed to achieve growth rate to 8 % by the year 2007-8 said Dr. Ashfaq Hasan Khan, Economic Advisor, Ministry of Finance.

He was sharing his views in a roundtable discussion on "Understanding the Budget 2004-05" organized by Pakistan Institute of Legislative Development and Transparency (PILDAT) in collaboration with Pakistan Legislative Strengthing Consortium (PICS) here on Sunday.

Budgets' Salient Featurs

Highlighting the salient features of the budget he said government has announced special incentives for the development of agriculture sector and started projects allocating an amount of $ 331 bln.

He said 229 million acres land will be cultivated adding agriculture is contributing 24% of total Gross National Product of the country.

Dr. Ashfaq said government has also announced special incentives for housing and construction business which provides employment to a large sector.

He added that 300 million additional capacity was observed in cement and steel demand also increased due to government policies.

Last four years salaries increased 70-80% as 40-50% salary increase announced in 2001-02, 15% increased in 2003-04 and same increase announced in the budget of 2004-05.

Bahbood Amount Raised

He maintained that 'Bahbood' amount was raised from Rs. 1 Million to Rs. 2 Million which provides relief to senior citizens, widows and other who are eligible for it.

He said for twenty years, country faced worse crisis of debt service payment as due to wrong policies 2\3 of Gross National Production paid to rebate the debt annually.

He informed that during that period total external debt and liabilities was 335 bln. "This ratio, if cross the limit of 200bln, the country could be declared defaulter at any time", he said.

Stabilization Policy

Dr. Ashfaq maintained that government launched stabilization policy which result in debt accumulation decrease and reduced it to 1.6 bln which proved it out of danger limit.

SPDC Chief

Speaking on the occasion Dr. Kaiser Bengali, Executive Director, Social Policy and Development Centre (SPDC) said after 1994 first time development expenditure is more than defence expenditure in the budget 2004-2005 and it is a positive step.

Senator Prof. Khurshed Ahmed

The Chairman Institute of Policy Studies, Senator Prof. Khurshed Ahmed said role of parliament for preparing the budget document should be increased and special parliamentarians committees should be formed four to six month before the budget announcement.

He added that fiscal responsibility law would be presented in the parliament soon.