Federal Minister for Finance and Revenue Pakistan, Shaukat Tarin has said that Pakistan may have to send experts to Afghanistan because of the country’s major experts have left the country which has complicated the Taliban’s administration, reports The News.
While giving an extensive briefing to the Senate Standing Committee on Finance on Thursday, Mr Tarin said that the government was building up strategic reserves of essential food commodities to meet domestic as well as Afghanistan’s requirements.
According to him, “they [Afghanistan} require assistance and we may have to dispatch experts because of the brain drain in Afghanistan. The situation is fluid and we are analysing it. The West has stopped foreign reserves of Afghanistan to the tune of $10 billion, as the IMF has stopped $400 million and many others so Kabul will be facing a scarcity of foreign exchange. Our bilateral trade will surge but we may have to undertake bilateral trade in the Pak rupee.”
Talking about Pakistan’s economic situation he stated, “Pakistan’s trade deficit stands at $4 billion and remittances are hovering around $2.5 billion.”
“On tax revenue, FBR revenues are ahead of target by 23 percent. The track and trace system will be placed for five major sectors. The Point of Sale (POS) will integrate receipts and standardised and frivolous notices will be withdrawn,” he assured.
More than 120,000 people evacuated from Afghanistan are qualified professionals from civil servants to lawyers.
Michael Barry, a specialist on Afghanistan who taught at the American University in Kabul, said that many members of the Taliban are from rural areas and lack the knowledge to run the state bureaucracy, as per Agence France-Presse (AFP).
