March 9, 2002	Saturday	Zilhaj 24, 1422

KARACHI, March 8: Finance Minister Shaukat Aziz has said that the first meeting of the recently established Cabinet Committee on Deregulation will be held on Monday to sort out ways and means for removing 10 key irritants.

He said the committee had pointed out 10 key irritants from labour levies to taxes. Addressing the launching ceremony of Pakistan Stock Market Fund (PSM) and Pakistan Income Fund (PIF), introduced by Arif Habib Investments, he said there were at least 100 irritants hampering the growth of trade and industry, but the government would remove them step by step.

He said the committee would have to finalize the report of the Monday’s meeting within 30 days in order to present it before President Pervaiz Musharraf.

The committee, headed by the finance minister, also includes finance ministers of four provinces and four to five federal ministers and people from the private sector. He said whenever the committee met in the future it would have to present the final report to the President.

Shaukat said the committee would set up a sub group to be headed by Chairman, Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP), Khalid Mirza. He will chair the meeting of the private and public sector people.

On Afghanistan restructuring, he said an estimated Rs35 million worth of declared value of goods were finding way to Afghanistan daily from Chaman and Torkham areas, which was expected to increase in future as Pakistan had an important role to play in this regard, both directly as well as through facilitation.

The minister expressed the hope that Pakistan will get a sizable share of development work that would stimulate aggregate demand and consequently spur economic activities.

“We will soon open another platform on Pak-Afghan border to expedite the movement of goods to Afghanistan,” he added.

On other issues, he said the government was now moving towards fewer taxes and low rates of taxes, but “we are equally conscious of raising the overall bases of taxes.”

On stock market, he said today the market had no resemblance to the market of two year back. People can now put more faith in the market than ever before. He said the process was continuing and at the end “we will have a market that would not be dominated by few players or have a narrow base of investors.”

Shaukat said the stock markets would earn the confidence of investors and its role as a major source of financial intermediation would be firmly established. He said the government was fully determined to help stock markets.

On government’s reform agenda, the minister said, “the reform has made it possible for us to restore our credibility in the world. We have comfortable position in our external accounts. Our reserves are over five billion dollars and multilateral institutions are working closely with Pakistan.”

“A three-year programme with the IMF is a clear testimony to the