KHALID ABBAS SAIF
FAISALABAD (March 11 2010): Economists have suggested that fiscal incentives should be provided to the returning Pakistani migrants who wish to set up small and/or medium-scale businesses.
In a study titled 'Remittances and Household Welfare', prepared by Vaqar Ahmed, Deputy Chief of Macroeconomics Section of Planning Commission of Pakistan; Guntur Sugiyarto, Economist, Development Indicators and Policy Research Division, Economics and Research Department, Asian Development Bank, and Shikha Jha, Senior Economist, Macroeconomics and Finance Research Division, Economics and Research Department, ADB, observed that these incentives may take the form of tax breaks, or other related initial concessions.
Second, to ensure future remittances cash flows, a special exchange rate may be offered on remittances arriving in special savings accounts in domestic financial institutions.
Third, the banking sector should be more proactive to increase the speed and certainty of remittance transactions to encourage more migrants to send their money through official banking channels, they added.
The economists said that this step would help in the development of the financial sector in the economy and contribute to the stability of macroeconomic fundamentals, in particular the balance of payments. It is also a challenge for the government to make remittances more redistributive by making the tax system more progressive to help low income households. It is important to note, however, that the tax structure, related to remittances, should provide incentives for migrants to send more through the formal channels. This may require amendments to the current Income Tax Ordinance, they added.
They pointed out that the challenge for Pakistan is to channel the remittance flows toward long-term investments that can contribute toward sustained growth in the real sector, while at the same time leveraging the economy away from consumption-led growth. In this regard, several key measures that have been seen across the developing world have also been considered for Pakistan. It is also a challenge for the government to make remittances more redistributive by making the tax system more progressive to help low-income households. It is important to note however that the tax structure related to remittances should provide incentives for migrants to send more through the formal channels. This may require amendments to the current Income Tax Ordinance.
In "Key Findings and Policy Implications", Economists revealed that with around two million Pakistani migrants in the Gulf region and almost the same number spread in North America, UK, and other countries, remittances from abroad have contributed significantly to the economy. The current contribution of foreign remittances is more than 4percent of GDP, and in some periods, they have become the major source of foreign exchange reserves. This paper examines the impact of remittances on the macro economy and household welfare in Pakistan using a CGE model and micro-econometric analysis. They said that the first approach is to highlight the macroeconomic and distributional effects of a reduction in remittances, while the second method is to show how remittances decrease the probability of being poor and affect the household consumption expenditure and hence poverty.
They pointed out the key findings are as follows:
(i) Descriptive analysis from survey data indicates that the mean income of a migrant household is 17.3 higher than a non-migrant household. The share of remittances in the total income increases as the household moves to a higher income group. Remittances also contribute more to rural household incomes than to urban household incomes. The share of remittances in rural households increased from 3 percent to 5 percent during 2002-06, while in urban areas it remained stable at around 4 percent. Regional characteristics also affect significantly the pattern of migration and therefore the flows of remittances in Pakistan.
(ii) The CGE simulation analysis shos that a 50 percent reduction in remittances adversely impacts real GDP growth by -0.74, real investment by -7.7percent, and total household consumption by -2.8 percent. As a result, poverty headc ount increases by 6.35 percent.
The reductions in consumption levels of rural non-farm and landless agricultural households shows the largest cut because of the remittance drop.
The poverty impact is much stronger in rural than urban areas, showing the stronger link between migration/remittance and poverty in rural compared to urban areas. This further highlights that many migrants from Pakistan are still low-skilled workers coming from agricultural backgrounds.
(iii) Results show that the probability of becoming poor declines by 12.7 percent if the household receives remittances from abroad. An increase in the household size and number of persons with secondary education lead to an increase in the probability of household member migrating. On the other hand, increasing the number of males over 15 years of age, living in urban areas, and having more household members with university education lead to a decrease in the probability of the household member going abroad.
(iv) The shares of household expenditures on food, education, clothing, and recreation increase with the availability of remittances. The predicted mean expenditure of migrant households is 41 percent higher than nonmigrant households. The highest increase is in the expenditure share on durables, ie, 74 percent. The budget share for education increases only by 2.9 percent for migrant households.
(v) The poverty headcount ratio and Gini coefficient decline by 7.8 percent and 4.8 percent, respectively, for households receiving remittances. Due to the global financial crisis, developing countries such as Pakistan, have witnessed a brief reverse migration following the laying off of workers abroad due to business closures and a general lack of demand. Pakistani overseas workers have returned home with their accumulated savings that increased remittance flows.
Furthermore, according to the Study, statistics shows the poverty estimates for both migrant and non-migrant households. The results suggest that poverty declines by 7.8 percent if the households receive remittances from abroad. This substantial reduction in poverty level signifies the importance of remittances received by households in Pakistan.
Similarly, the poverty gap and poverty severity also decline even by higher rates, ie, 11.5 percent and 14.9 percent, respectively. This implies that some of the remittance recipients are actually the poor households so that remittances reduce the poverty gap and poverty severity. Moreover, the income distribution of migrant households is actually better than non-migrant households. The Gini coefficient of migrant household is 4.8 percent lower than non-migrant households, study report said.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2010
Showing posts with label Dawn tax pakistan debt inflation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Dawn tax pakistan debt inflation. Show all posts
Monday, March 15, 2010
Sunday, July 8, 2007
Lowering debt-to-GDP ratio
By Sultan Ahmed
http://www.dawn.com/2007/06/18/ebr11.htm
The government wants to reduce the national debt to GDP ratio to 20 per cent from about 50 per cent now over a period of 10 years, says Dr Salman Shah, advisor to the prime minister on finance. It translates into a rate reduction of 2.5 per cent of the debt per annum. This is a very desirable goal that would be helpful to the economy.The debt reduction will help increase the investment and accelerate the rate of growth as more resources are diverted towards development to provide employment to the over 100 million people under the age of 25.Lower national debt means less financial resources devoted to debt servicing and more funds diverted to development and social welfare. The total national debt has come down from an untenable over 100 per cent of GDP to 50 per cent.Privatisation minister Zahid Hamid says that privatisation has so far brought $7 billion which has been used largely for debt reduction. The budgeted privatisation proceed for next year is Rs75 billion, 90 percent of which will go towards debt servicing as committed by the government.As the major assets of the country like PTCL, Pakistan Steel and the refineries are privatised, the liabilities of the government should also be simultaneously liquidated. To set up such public sector projects, large loans, foreign and domestic were raised. And when these projects are sold off, the proceeds should be used to pay off debts and that should not been done through taxation.In fact heavy foreign borrowings are a risk because, in case of devaluation of the rupee, they raise the rupee cost of the loans substantially. Already the rupee has come down from 3.33 to a dollar in 1953 to 60.62 for a dollar now. As the rupee gets devalued, the rupee value of the debt goes up and strains the governments resources.Though rising in absolute numbers, external debt-to-GDP ratio is coming down gradually. But the domestic debt is increasing and along with it the cost of debt servicing The domestic borrowing is too heavy as the governments monetary needs are rising.The domestic debt servicing cost is rising despite lower interest rate for official borrowing. For example ,the government has borrowed overRs90 billion from the national savings organisation at low interest. In spite of the clamour for higher interest rates on National Savings Schemes, the government has not increased the rates to help the small savers in the face of a surging food and consumer price inflation.Servicing of foreign debt this year will cost Rs48.417 billion and the foreign loan repayment will be Rs54 billion-Rs2 billion less than the budgeted. Next year it will be Rs62.88 billion. The figure is rising.The level of foreign debt was reduced after 9/11 when donors wrote off their small loans following 9/11 as Pakistan joined the coalition against terrorism. Some of the loans from Britain and the European countries were converted into contributions for education and social welfare. Some of the donors came up with other forms of relief and reduced the interest rates. In the case of the US, repayment of the small loans were suspended forsix years, where new loans were given. Now is the time to resume such repayments.The budgeted figure for next year for borrowings from the central bank is Rs130 billion. Such bank borrowing through printing of extra currency has upset the governor of the State bank Dr Shamshad Akhtar as it adds to the money in circulation and aggravates the inflation. But the government finds it a handy process as, while it pays the interest on bank borrowing through one hand, it collects the same as dividend by the other hand as the State Bank’s sole shareholder. The StatBank wants the government to borrow money from the public including banks and reduce inflation.The government is resorting to such heavy bank borrowing despite of the large tax receipts it will collect next year to the extent of Rs1.03 trillion. This is an election year and the government prefers to seek votes by making various gestures and offers and relying on bank borrowing to fund that.The government should stick to the target of bringing down the national debt to 20 per cent of the GDP which will be truly helpful to the government and the country.
Source: Dawn Newspaper
http://www.dawn.com/2007/06/18/ebr11.htm
The government wants to reduce the national debt to GDP ratio to 20 per cent from about 50 per cent now over a period of 10 years, says Dr Salman Shah, advisor to the prime minister on finance. It translates into a rate reduction of 2.5 per cent of the debt per annum. This is a very desirable goal that would be helpful to the economy.The debt reduction will help increase the investment and accelerate the rate of growth as more resources are diverted towards development to provide employment to the over 100 million people under the age of 25.Lower national debt means less financial resources devoted to debt servicing and more funds diverted to development and social welfare. The total national debt has come down from an untenable over 100 per cent of GDP to 50 per cent.Privatisation minister Zahid Hamid says that privatisation has so far brought $7 billion which has been used largely for debt reduction. The budgeted privatisation proceed for next year is Rs75 billion, 90 percent of which will go towards debt servicing as committed by the government.As the major assets of the country like PTCL, Pakistan Steel and the refineries are privatised, the liabilities of the government should also be simultaneously liquidated. To set up such public sector projects, large loans, foreign and domestic were raised. And when these projects are sold off, the proceeds should be used to pay off debts and that should not been done through taxation.In fact heavy foreign borrowings are a risk because, in case of devaluation of the rupee, they raise the rupee cost of the loans substantially. Already the rupee has come down from 3.33 to a dollar in 1953 to 60.62 for a dollar now. As the rupee gets devalued, the rupee value of the debt goes up and strains the governments resources.Though rising in absolute numbers, external debt-to-GDP ratio is coming down gradually. But the domestic debt is increasing and along with it the cost of debt servicing The domestic borrowing is too heavy as the governments monetary needs are rising.The domestic debt servicing cost is rising despite lower interest rate for official borrowing. For example ,the government has borrowed overRs90 billion from the national savings organisation at low interest. In spite of the clamour for higher interest rates on National Savings Schemes, the government has not increased the rates to help the small savers in the face of a surging food and consumer price inflation.Servicing of foreign debt this year will cost Rs48.417 billion and the foreign loan repayment will be Rs54 billion-Rs2 billion less than the budgeted. Next year it will be Rs62.88 billion. The figure is rising.The level of foreign debt was reduced after 9/11 when donors wrote off their small loans following 9/11 as Pakistan joined the coalition against terrorism. Some of the loans from Britain and the European countries were converted into contributions for education and social welfare. Some of the donors came up with other forms of relief and reduced the interest rates. In the case of the US, repayment of the small loans were suspended forsix years, where new loans were given. Now is the time to resume such repayments.The budgeted figure for next year for borrowings from the central bank is Rs130 billion. Such bank borrowing through printing of extra currency has upset the governor of the State bank Dr Shamshad Akhtar as it adds to the money in circulation and aggravates the inflation. But the government finds it a handy process as, while it pays the interest on bank borrowing through one hand, it collects the same as dividend by the other hand as the State Bank’s sole shareholder. The StatBank wants the government to borrow money from the public including banks and reduce inflation.The government is resorting to such heavy bank borrowing despite of the large tax receipts it will collect next year to the extent of Rs1.03 trillion. This is an election year and the government prefers to seek votes by making various gestures and offers and relying on bank borrowing to fund that.The government should stick to the target of bringing down the national debt to 20 per cent of the GDP which will be truly helpful to the government and the country.
Source: Dawn Newspaper
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