KARACHI, May 26: The government proposes to make highest-ever allocation for public sector spending in the forthcoming budget, Finance Minister Shaukat Aziz said at a pre-budget meeting organized by the Karachi Stock Exchange on Wednesday.

He said that high on the priority list in infrastructure spending would be building roads, railways and ports and investment in energy and social sectors, such as education and health.

Mr Aziz said that the 2004-05 budget would be 'investment- and growth-oriented' aimed at helping the growth of private sector and agriculture. He said that the government believed in arming people with the right skills: "We would strive for job creation and opportunity creation, because our people need opportunities, not 'khayraat' (charity)."

Talking about the macro-economic indicators, the minister said that GDP growth this year would comfortably exceed 6 per cent and the size of economy would be close to US $100 billion. He was confident that the growth rate would touch 8 per cent in the coming years.

Mr Aziz claimed that domestic investments and savings had gone up and consumer spending had increased mainly because of the low interest rate environment.

The minister won applause from the audience when he said that Pakistan would say good-bye to the IMF in December. He claimed that in the IMF history, Pakistan was the only country which had graduated from the PRGF to a market-based system.

Mr Aziz congratulated the KSE for its 'excellent performance' and said that if the fundamentals were right the market would continue to rise. He identified future challenges as building the country's image, the quality of the level of governance of corporate sector; regional situation; the right level of growth to create jobs and the law and order situation which was an issue in all developing countries.