ISLAMABAD, June 7: Finance Minister Shaukat Aziz on Saturday announced a number of measures for expanding the physical and social infrastructure and to also provide relief to government employees, pensioners and widows.

A 15 per cent increase is envisaged in the salaries of government servants and pensions of retired employees. A special savings scheme along the lines of pensioners will be initiated. The scheme will offer a higher rate of profit will also be initiated for widows. Details, it is said, will be announced shortly.

Mr Aziz also announced fresh incentives for the overseas Pakistanis, including an increase in the duty-free allowance, raising it from $800 to $1,000 per year for holders of silver card and from $1,500 to $2,000 per year for gold card holders.

Talking about poverty, he said this year, the government had raised the development budget from more than 30 percent, which is unprecedented.

Mr Aziz also said that confidence of the investors had been restored to some extent. He said that foreign investment, during the first nine months of the year, had amounted to $670 million.

Referring to the small and medium enterprises, Mr Aziz said that major focus was to develop the SME sector as it has the ability to spur pro-poor growth. The massive reduction in interest rates and across the board reduction in tariffs will go a long was in supporting this sector. “We are working closely with all commercial banks to open special windows for providing financing to this sector”, he said.

The finance minister said that a committee, comprising federal and provincial governments, was being constituted that would examine all regulations relating to registration, dispute resolutions and duties applicable to property and real estate markets. A coordinated set of policy changes will be announced in the light of the report of the committee in consultation with the provincial governments.