KARACHI: Finance Mini­ster Asad Umar has said that the government is pursing an investment-led export growth model in short- and medium-term for early recovery of the economy and providing jobs to youth.

In an interactive session with foreign investors at the Overseas Investors Chamber of Commerce and Industry (OICCI) on Saturday, the minister agreed with the chamber’s recommendations that digitisation, data analytics and data mining will be leveraged to leapfrog the government efforts towards good governance and more importantly for broadening of the tax base.

He confirmed that the country is out of the immediate balance of payments crisis and is working on a clear path for recovery, adding that the benefit of the revised economic strategy may be visible during the next six to nine months.

He also briefly shared a holding company model for rehabilitating the state-owned enterprises (SoEs). “The government is soon going to engage the private sector to leverage the benefit of CPEC projects by putting up manufacturing facilities in various sectors,” he added.

He assured the OICCI members of addressing their concerns on tax refunds, higher circular debts and issues of delayed remittances in the ongoing fiscal year.

Speaking on the occasion OICCI President Irfan Wahab Khan said the chamber is soon going to share a comprehensive “OICCI Digital Pakistan” recommendation with the government to lead the country into an era of digital and financial inclusion and good governance.

Published in Dawn, November 11th, 2018