The finance minister said a grant of Rs 1.464 trillion had been earmarked for Azad Jammu & Kashmir, merged tribal districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Higher Education Commission, Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP), Railways and other sectors.

To boost the agriculture production in the country, he said the agriculture credit for the upcoming fiscal year was being increased from Rs 1.8 trillion to Rs 2.25 trillion, besides earmarking Rs 30 billion to switch 50,000 tubewells to solar energy.

The other measures for the agriculture included exemption of all taxes and duties on import of quality seeds and saplings, combined harvesters, rice planters, seeders and dryers; allocation of Rs 5 billion to provide concessional loans to agro industry; and five years tax exemption for agro-based industrial units with annual turnover of Rs 800 million, he added.

Similarly, Ishaq Dar said, under the PM’s Youth Business and Agriculture Loan Scheme the government would provide Rs 10 billion as subsidy.

In a bid to boost IT (information technology) exports, the minister said 0.25% concessional rate of income tax would remain intact until June 30, 2026. Moreover, the freelancers earning up to $24,000 per year would also be exempted from sales tax registration and filing tax returns while a singe page income tax return would be introduced for them, he added.

He said the IT and IT enabled service providers would be allowed to import duty free software and hardware valuing one percent of their total export proceeds. The upper limit of the exports had been set at $50,000 per year.

He said the IT sector was being given the status of industry which would help it availing concessional income tax rates.

Likewise, he said, the government was establishing a venture capital fund with seed money of Rs 5 billion to provide business resources to the IT entrepreneurs.

The government had also reduced the sales tax rate from 15% to 5% for IT services in the Islamabad Capital Territory, he added.

The minister said during the upcoming financial year, the government would provide professional training to 50,000 IT graduates.

Highlighting the relief measures proposed for the Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) sector, the finance minister said the turnover threshold under the tax facilitation system for the SMEs was being expanded from Rs 250 million to Rs 800 million while under the PM’s Youth Loan Programme, the government had earmarked Rs 10 billion to provide concessional loans for small businesses.

For the industry and export sector, he said the government would establish Export Council of Pakistan under the chairmanship of the prime minister which would meet every quarter to make decisions about the sector.

Other relief measures for the sector included reduction of minimum tax for all the listed companies from 1.25% to 1%, withdrawal of 5% regulatory duty on synthetic filament yarn which was not manufactured locally, reduction of customs duty on pet scrap from 20% to 11%, and exemption of customs duty for manufacturers of rice mill machinery and machine tools, he added.

Ishaq Dar also announced relief measures for the overseas Pakistanis, which included withdrawal of 2% final tax on purchase of immovable property through foreign remittances.

Similarly, he also announced the issuance of Diamond Cards to the overseas Pakistanis sending remittances of over $50,000 per year. The Diamond Card holders would avail various facilities including non-prohibited bore licenses, gratis passports, preferential aces to Pakistani embassies and consulates, fast track immigration facility at Pakistani airports, and provision of handsome prize money through lucky draws.

Highlighting the measures taken for the education sector, Ishaq Dar said the government had earmarked Rs 65 billion for current expenditure and Rs 70 billion for development expenditure.

The government, he said, was also establishing the Pakistan Endowment Fund under which an amount of Rs 5 billion had been earmarked in the budget to provide merit scholarships to the high school and college students.

He said the Federal Government would distribute 100,000 laptops among deserving and the most talented students for which an amount of Rs 10 billion was being set aside.

Similarly, he said, the government was also allocating Rs 5 billion to promote sport activities in schools and colleges.

He said the government had earmarked Rs 5 billion for women empowerment under which concessional loans for businesses would be provided, besides projects of skill development and training for running business would be initiated.

Under the Prime Minister’s Youth Programme for Small Loans, he said the government had allocated Rs 10 billion to provide loans on concessional rates for opening new businesses.

The minister said to promote the construction sector and facilitate common man for building new houses, a tax exemption of 10% or Rs 5 million (whichever is lower) would be given on business income of the construction enterprises and the people intended to build new houses would be given concession of Rs 1 million or 10% tax credit (whichever is lower) for next three years.

He said the government had increased the budget of Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP) to Rs 360 billion which was being enhanced by another Rs 40 billion for the upcoming fiscal year. In the fiscal year 2023-24, as many as 9.3 million families would receive Rs 8,750 each per quarter for which an amount of Rs 346 billion had been earmarked, he added.

With respect to the PSDP 2023-24, the minister said 80% projects were near completion and expected to be completed by the end of 2024.

“In order to attract Foreign Direct Investment and to provide state of the art infrastructure the government has allocated 52% share of the total PSDP outlay,” he added.

The minister said the government had planned to issue the Working Journalist Health Insurance Card and Artist Health Insurance Card during the year 2023-24.