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Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb on Wednesday said lower government expenditures in the outgoing fiscal year were a \u201cresponse\u201d to previous \u201cright pushback\u201d from tax-paying individuals.<\/p>\n
He made the remarks during a post-budget press conference where he expanded upon the federal budget<\/a> proposed yesterday for the upcoming FY25-26.<\/p>\n Maintaining an aggressive stance on fiscal consolidation, as required by the Int\u00adernational Monetary Fund (IMF), Aurangzeb yesterday still managed to offer some notional relief<\/a> to the salaried class in the federal budget for FY2025-26, along with incentives for the real estate and construction sectors to revive the struggling industrial sector and stimulate economic growth.<\/p>\n Highlights:<\/strong><\/p>\n Addressing a media briefing in Islamabad today, Aurangzeb acknowledged that past concerns about government expenditures<\/a> not reducing were the \u201cright pushback\u201d.<\/p>\n However, in the outgoing fiscal year, the minister said the spending had gone up by \u201cjust 1.9pc\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have reduced subsidies and debt-servicing costs, and increased some expenditures because this country needed those. But this is our response to those people who are paying taxes in this country that \u2018why are you not bringing the government expenditures under control\u2019,\u201d Aurangzeb asserted.<\/p>\n He pointed out that whatever the government was giving was doing so \u201cby taking loans as we start with a deficit\u201d, adding that if the expenditures were not reduced, then the loans would keep surging.<\/p>\n