March 20, 2003	Thursday	Muharram 16, 1424

ISLAMABAD, March 19: Pakistan had met or exceeded all financial targets till December 31, 2002, which would help the government to formulate development and growth-oriented new budget in June this year, says Prime Minister’s Adviser on Finance Shaukat Aziz on Wednesday.

“Now we have a better idea about our revenues in 2003-04 budget due to good performance of the economy,” he said.

Addressing a press conference, he said that he could not say at this stage about the revenue target for next financial year. “But I can tell you that more funds will be available for health, education and agriculture in the new budget for which suggestions have also been invited from all segments of the society.”

He termed as “very good talks” held with the IMF review mission and said that the next review of the economy would be conducted by the Fund officials in April next to extend sixth disbursement.

Mr. Aziz said that Pakistan was all poised to achieve 4.6 per cent GDP growth in 2002-03 specially due to better performance of the agriculture and industrial sectors.

Referring to Iraq, he said that the economy was at a stage that usual vulnerabilities Pakistan used to face in the past, did not exist today.

He said the country has much higher stocks of oil and other essential commodities to meet any serious situation. However, Aziz admitted that only constraint was the storage capacity specially for petroleum products. “But we have one month of stock of oil.”

He told a reporter that none of the oil exporting countries has fixed the price of oil and that Pakistan was not in a disadvantageous position as far as prices of oil were concerned specially in the event of war.

Aziz also said that Pakistan would offer better trade incentives to Afghanistan when President Hamid Karzai visits Pakistan on March 22. “We will be reviewing negative list of 24 items under Afghan Transit Trade by removing 8 items, the details of which will be announced later.”

Pakistan, he said, would propose to President Karzai to collect tariff for Afghan goods at Karachi port in order to discourage smuggling.

He said the Afghan President would also be informed about $100 million financial support that Pakistan has planned for the development of Kabul-Jalalabad road and other projects in health and education sectors.

To a question, he said, that the prime minister had been briefed about the latest Pakistan-China economic and trade relations. He said during prime minister’s visit to China, a number of new areas including power generation and railways would come for discussion for increased bilateral cooperation. He said China was also expected to offer support for the development of model agricultural farms in the country.

“Then we will be seeking Chinese investment in the Export Processing Zone,” the advisor said.