PTI Secretary General Asad Umar on Friday excoriated the coalition government for imposing a “super tax” on large-scale industries, saying that the measure would “rattle the economy”, increase unemployment and inflation, shoot up imports and push Pakistan further into economic crisis.
“This is a huge blow to the growing industries,” he said at a press conference in Islamabad.
In his presser today, Umar said: “This [super tax] is an attack on those sectors of the economy that have the potential of growth […] that can increase production and livelihood […] and this is the reason why the market lost 2,000 points during Shehbaz Sharif’s speech.
“You can clearly figure out from this how dangerous and fatal the budget is for the economy,” the former federal minister pointed out.
For the past 20 years, he continued, Pakistan had a policy of gradually decreasing taxes on industries. “But they have ruined it all now.”
He further stated that even now, despite increasing prices of every commodity — diesel, petrol, gas, and food items — the PM said the deal with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) will only be signed if the fund doesn’t make more demands.
