Govt contemplates to tap parallel economy

ISLAMABAD – Finding hardly any way out of the economic imbroglio of constantly growing fiscal imbalances, the Government is actively contemplating to tap, as much as it can, so-called parallel or informal economy.
In the wake of delays in inflow of foreign assistance both bilateral and multilateral and war on terror costing beyond estimates besides dampening investment scenario the Government is left with no option but to go for some unconventional measures to generate capital resources.
Well-placed sources informed TheNation that the Finance Ministry had been formulating a proposal that would include multidimensional steps to lure informal businesses towards documentation. The sources were of the view that this time documentation of the economy would be comprehensive more than former Finance Minister Shaukat Aziz’s economic survey that miserably failed.
According to the sources, the Government would seek a prior node from the Bretton Woods institutions before implementing the policy of tapping the informal economy, which independent observers believe has grown much more than the size of the formal economy.
Advisor to the Prime Minister Abdul Hafeez Sheikh and Governor State Bank of Pakistan Saleem Raza are leaving tonight for the US to the attend the spring meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank Group at Washington on April 24-25. After the spring meetings of the multilateral institutions the Pakistan delegation would hold individual meetings with the both organisations. The Government is seeking a series of wavers on different targets agreed upon under the standby loan programme of over $11 billion. Starting from fiscal deficit to the withdrawal of subsidies on utilities the Government has failed to achieve the targets for the current financial year.