The Federal Minister for Finance, Revenue, and Economic Affairs, Dr. Shamshad Akhtar presided over a meeting of the Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) of the Cabinet, today. The meeting was attended by the Minister of Planning, Development and Special Initiatives Mr. Sami Saeed, the Minister for Privatization Mr. Fawad Husan Fawad, Minister for Industries and Commerce Mr. Ejaz Gohar, Minister for Power & Petroleum Mr. Muhammad Ali, Minister for Information Technology Mr. Umar Saif, Advisor to PM on Finance Dr. Waqar Masood, Federal Secretaries, and other senior government officers of the relevant ministries. Provincial Chief Secretaries, Governor State Bank and other relevant officers also joined the meeting through Zoom link. ECC considered a summary of Ministry of Energy (Power Division) regarding release of Rs. 57 billion advanced subsidy for payment of K-Electric arrears and approved the Technical Supplementary Grant in order to meet the operational requirements of power sector. Another summary of Power Division for settlement of payables to Government Owned Power Plants (GPPs) at par with IPPs was approved and ECC directed to release Rs. 262.075 billion to public sector power plants through technical supplementary grant. This matter will further be discussed in next meeting. ECC agreed to initiate phase out of the Export Finance Scheme of the State Bank of Pakistan- a requirement of the IMF Standby Arrangement. To operationalize this requirement ECC gave approval to release of Rs. 3.87 billion to EXIM bank for current Fiscal Year. While discussing report on ECCs decisions on PSMs liabilities towards GoP as discussed on September 19th 2023, Minister Finance directed Ministry of Industries to carry out a diagnostic survey to determine why liabilities of PSM persisted even though it had not been operational since 2015 and how PSM land had been allocated to housing companies and served other industries without due process. ECC showed its displeasure on PSM board and recommended that Industries Division may look into this issue for further necessary action. Transfer of National Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority NEECA from Science and Technology Division to Power Division was approved and ECC also approved TSG amounting to Rs.152.417 Million for FY 2023-24 in favour of NEECA for this purpose. Summary regarding Profitable Support price for wheat crop 2023-24 submitted by NFS&R was also discussed. After detailed deliberations with all the provinces ECC recommended the last years price i.e. Rs. 3900/40 Kg, given the substantial increase of 77% in support price in 2022/23, ECC endorsed that there shall be no subsidy on agriculture inputs which in any case is responsibility of provinces. The forum also gave approval of the notification of minimum indicative prices of Tobacco Crop 2024 and revision of cess rates on tobacco for the year 2024-25. An additional agenda item from Ministry of Information Technology and Telecommunication regarding relending of GoP to National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA) was discussed and got approved by the ECC.
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