ISLAMABAD, Jan 16: A meeting held here on Wednesday for a ‘mid-term review’ of national economy discussed proposals to revise downward various economic targets set for the current financial year.

Sources told Dawn that the meeting held with President Pervez Musharraf in the chair was informed that it would be difficult to achieve 7.2 per cent GDP growth rate during 2007-08 due to a decline in revenues, exports and local and foreign investments. And the situation was compounded by the violence that followed the assassination of PPP chairperson Benazir Bhutto.

Analysts estimate that the violence caused Rs1 trillion losses in the industrial centres.

Caretaker Finance Minister Dr Salman Shah, State Bank Governor Dr Shamshad Akhtar and Federal Board of Revenue Chairman Abdullah Yousuf attended the meeting.

The sources said that the meeting was told that during the first six months (July-December) of the current financial year, economy suffered a great deal on account of increasing terrorist activities and law and order problems.

The FBR chairman briefed the meeting on revenue collection which had suffered heavily over the past two months.

The sources said the finance minister told the meeting that despite shocks and uncertainties the economy was still showing signs of resilience. However, he pleaded for increasing oil prices to avoid more economic problems.

He said it was becoming extremely difficult to continue offering a monthly subsidy of Rs14 billion.

Issues concerning low exports and high imports and wheat and flour crisis also came under discussion. The meeting was informed that the smuggling of flour to Afghanistan had been minimised with the help of Rangers and other law-enforcement agencies and wheat was being exported now only through government-to-government arrangements.

The president told the meeting that he was worried about the state of economy which had performed quite well during 2001-05, but started experiencing problems in 2006 and 2007.

He asked the economic team to make concentrated efforts during the remaining six months of 2007-08 for a broad recovery.