This time, the IMF was not ready to accept the government's promises, but wanted all its demands and reforms to be legalized in the budget, which the government fulfilled, for which an emergency session of the National Assembly was also called, in which the Government Enterprises (SOEs)

Legislation regarding change of board of directors was enacted in which the federal cabinet can remove the board of directors of power transmission companies Discos for unsatisfactory performance.  After the meeting, the Standing Committee on Finance and Revenue of the National Assembly chaired by Naveed Qamar, Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb, Minister of State Ali Malik, Secretary Finance Imdadullah and Chairman FBR Amjad Zubair Tiwana gave an in-camera presentation on the country's economy, the performance of FBR and the agreement with the IMF and answered the questions of other members of the finance committee, including Umar Ayub Khan, Arshad Wohra and Dr. Nafisa Shah.   It was a very informative meeting of the Standing Committee on Finance in which the country got an opportunity to understand the economic challenges faced by the country, the IMF program and the impact of tax cuts in the budget and finally on July 12, the IMF approved Pakistan's It was a very informative meeting of the Standing Committee on Finance in which the country got an opportunity to understand the economic challenges faced by the country, the IMF program and the impact of tax cuts in the budget, and finally on July 12, the IMF agreed to a 37-month, $7 billion Staff Level Agreement (SLA) with Pakistan, which the IMF's Board of Directors has to ratify by the end of this month. According to the IMF's new long-term program, Pakistan's current tax rate of 9 percent of GDP is to be increased from 1.5 percent per annum to 13.5 percent in 3 years for agriculture, exports, retail and real estate sectors.

Normal tax has been introduced in the system which has been announced in the budget. To increase the rate of direct taxes by reducing the rate of these direct taxes in Pakistan. Under the 18th amendment to establish the balance of expenditure (NFP) between the federal and provincial governments, Provinces have to take serious steps to collect sales tax on their services and income tax on agriculture.  In this regard, the IMF is in direct contact with the provincial governments and one is happy that all four provincial governments have approved to bring the agriculture sector under the income tax system from July 1, for which legislation is being drafted.  The IMF has supported a tight monetary policy under which the State Bank of Pakistan increased its discount rate to 22 percent to reduce inflation, which was later reduced by 1.5 percent to 20.5 percent, but the banks' high lending rates. Due to this, there has been a negative impact on new investments in the country. According to the new IMF agreement, State Bank will have to stabilize the exchange rate and foreign exchange reserves, for which the Ministry of Finance will have to roll over soft deposits from friendly countries, which include China, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.  The IMF has called for drastic reforms in the energy sector to curb financial risks and discouraged excess power contracts that would have forced the government to pay billions of rupees in capacity surcharges even if the power was not taken. The IMF has opposed subsidies and cross-subsidies and most subsidies have been eliminated in the budget.  The Govt's announcement of a total reduction of 250 billion rupees in the electricity tariff for the industrial sector is to end the cross-subsidy that was imposed on industrial consumers to provide cheap electricity to domestic consumers.  

At the request of the IMF, a new law has been passed in the National Assembly to improve the efficiency of the Board of Directors of Government Enterprises (SOEs), under which the Federal Cabinet can now remove such Board of Directors whose performance is unsatisfactory.  The IMF has called for an end to tax and customs duty exemptions in Special Economic Zones (SEZs), which make local industries uncompetitive, while also opposing subsidies, support prizes and tax incentives in the agricultural sector.  In the agreement, the IMF has also called for good governance, transparency and serious measures against corruption and removing all restrictions on imports, including pension reforms.  Financial experts raised this question in the Finance and Revenue Standing Committee of the National Assembly that FBR pressures businessmen in terms of advance taxes and direct taxes to achieve tax targets and that is the reason why the exporters are given a final one percent withholding tax.  There are serious concerns about bringing the tax to a normal tax system. Chairman FBR Amjad Zubair Tiwana assured the financial  experts of full support to the business community and exporters as a member of the National Assembly Standing Committee on Finance and Revenue.Meanwhile, in the light of the staff level agreement reached between Pakistan and the IMF, the stock market indices unexpectedly increased to reach the highest level of 81 thousand points. In the light of the agreement, where the possibilities of the country getting more loans from other international institutions and countries have been brightened, the government's efforts for the last five months in terms of bringing in foreign investment seem to have been confirmed. 

It is known that the State Bank had announced a reduction of one and a half percent in the interest rate last month, due to this, those investors who have kept their money in the banks for better profit, brought a part of them to the stock market, but the interest rate in the country is now is also quite high and most people still prefer to keep money in banks due to the low risk factor.  The second safe place to save capital in Pakistan is real estate, the trend of investing in the stock market is increasing due to the huge low taxes imposed on this sector in the federal budget. It means that the confidence of the investors in the economy has been restored, however, it is necessary to see how much their number is in the country's stock market and how much their total capital is, because only about 272 thousand are registered in the population of 25 crore and barely 50 thousand of them are registered. Many people are doing business daily. It is necessary that the government should take such steps to break the stagnation in industry and trade while paying full attention to the real recovery of the economy.