ISLAMABAD: The National Assembly Standing Committee on Finance on Thursday deferred four important bills and directed the Finance Division to brief the committee in the next meeting.

The committee chaired by MNA Faiz Ullah considered the four bills — Covid-19 (Prevention of Smuggling) Bill 2020, Modaraba Companies (Flotation and Operations) (Amendment) Bill, 2021, State-owned Enterprises (Governance and Operations) Bill 2021 and Tax Law (Third Amendment) Bill 2021.

All these bills were deferred to the next meeting with a directive for the ministry to submit a comparative statement on the bills.

The Exim Bank of Pakistan chief executive officer informed the committee that the bank has been declared as development financial institution. It has been designated as the official Export Credit Agency of the country to be formed through an Act of Parliament.

The bank management is targeting to initiate commercial operation this month subject to approval of the act and issuance of “letter of commencement of operations” from the State Bank of Pakistan.

The Export-Import Bank of Pakistan Bill 2021 was presented before the committee and after detailed discussion the committee recommended that the bill may be passed by the National Assembly.

The committee, however, recommended that National Assembly did not pass another bill titled “The Controller General of Accounts (Appointment, Functions and Powers) (Amendment) Bill, 2019”.

A representative of the Finance Division briefed the committee on the budgetary proposals relating to the Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP) for 2022-23.

Published in Dawn, March 4th, 2022