{"id":6604,"date":"2022-03-01T13:22:30","date_gmt":"2022-03-01T13:22:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailyausaf.com\/en\/?p=6604"},"modified":"2022-03-01T13:22:30","modified_gmt":"2022-03-01T13:22:30","slug":"pm-imran-khan-announces-industrial-package-says-govt-will-remove-all-obstacles-for-smes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dailyausaf.com\/en\/pakistan\/pm-imran-khan-announces-industrial-package-says-govt-will-remove-all-obstacles-for-smes\/","title":{"rendered":"PM Imran Khan announces industrial package, says govt will remove all obstacles for SMEs"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister (PM) Imran Khan on Tuesday emphasized the importance of industrialization for Pakistan as he announced an industrial package just a day after slashing petrol and power prices as part of relief measures for the public.<\/p>\n<p>Addressing a ceremony in Lahore during his day-long visit, the premier reflected on his time in government, saying the first thing his party should have done after coming into power was to encourage industrialisation.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The biggest thing I should have done on the very first day [in office] was announce the package that I have given to the business community today,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>No country could progress by selling vegetables and wheat, he said, adding that Pakistan had been progressing rapidly 50 years ago but &#8220;nationalisation took us on a different trajectory and we never recovered&#8221; as he lamented that the past governments were &#8220;divorced from the direction they should have been on&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Industrial package features:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Incentives for investing in small and medium industries<\/li>\n<li>Incentives for restoring, investing in sick units<\/li>\n<li>Overseas Pakistanis to get five-year tax holiday when investing in the country<\/li>\n<li>Tax rate will be decreased by widening the tax base<\/li>\n<li>No questions will be asked for investments in the industrial sector<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<p>The prime minister said the previous governments had been against wealth creation and devised policies that were against profit-making, which he termed as a &#8220;socialist mindset&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We had decided at the start to focus on industrialistion, [especially] the export-oriented industry. But, I see now the amnesty we gave &#8230; we should not have given an open amnesty, we should have [instead] directed it towards industry.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>He noted that the dollar crisis keeps on recurring if a country&#8217;s exports do not increase. &#8220;Whenever our economy started growing [in the past], there would be a dollar deficit and we would have to go to the IMF (International Monetary Fund). There was no long-term planning,&#8221; he rued.<\/p>\n<p>The premier shared the aspects of the incumbent government&#8217;s industrial policy, which he said would divert the &#8220;money lying in plots and not being productively used&#8221; in investment in the country&#8217;s industries, ending unnecessary checks and creating ease for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and incentivising investment in &#8216;sick&#8217; industries.<\/p>\n<h2 id=\"621e06f13b396\">Overseas Pakistanis<\/h2>\n<p>Calling overseas Pakistanis the country&#8217;s &#8220;biggest asset&#8221;, the prime minister said he understood the obstacles they faced in investing in Pakistan. There was a lack of contract enforcement and overseas Pakistanis were &#8220;ruined&#8221; by courts if they approached them. Overseas Pakistanis would buy land but it would be taken over by land grabbers, he said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;So we took action against land grabbers. We have set up\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.dawn.com\/news\/1675237\">courts<\/a>\u00a0for overseas Pakistanis and now we are inviting them [to invest] \u2014 they will have a five-year tax holiday, no questions asked. And if they do a joint venture with any Pakistani company, then both will get a 5-year tax holiday. The goal is to attract investment,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>He said that remittances had also risen to record levels after they were incentivised.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;As their trust increases that they can invest their capital in industry, this country will take off industry-wise. Successful Pakistani businessmen [overseas] will bring their money here. They have skills and money. They just need confidence and incentives.&#8221;<\/p>\n<h2 id=\"621e06f13b412\">IT sector<\/h2>\n<p>The premier said that his government should have given the information technology sector an amnesty at the start of its term. &#8220;Look at how [the IT sector in] India has grown. They have exports of $40 billion annually and ours &#8230; even after export grew 70 per cent is not even $4bn.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>He lamented that the government had treated IT &#8220;like any other industry&#8221;, noting that for the first time in Pakistan, both IT companies as well as freelancers have been incentivised &#8220;completely&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>He added that the government needed to hold boot camps and change the syllabus at the university level.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;For an independent and honourable foreign policy, it is necessary that the country is standing on its feet. When a country is going around with hands [asking] for aid, participating in others&#8217; wars and making a foreign policy that is against the interests of its citizens because it is not standing on its own feet, the world does not respect it,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Let us make clear what our direction is: We have to industrialise Pakistan, give all sorts of incentives, remove all sorts of obstacles for small and medium industries and give every sort of facility to overseas Pakistanis.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister (PM) Imran Khan on Tuesday emphasized the importance of industrialization for Pakistan as he announced an industrial package just a day after slashing petrol and power prices as part of relief measures for the public. Addressing a ceremony in Lahore during his day-long visit, the premier reflected on his time in government, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":5077,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,9,2],"tags":[1247,2689,546,160,273],"class_list":["post-6604","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","category-latest-news","category-pakistan","tag-international-monetary-fund","tag-overseas-pakistanis","tag-prime-minister-pm-imran-khan","tag-imf","tag-pti-government"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyausaf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6604","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyausaf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyausaf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyausaf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyausaf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6604"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyausaf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6604\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyausaf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5077"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyausaf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6604"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyausaf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6604"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyausaf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6604"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}