Foreign Direct Investment fell by 11.1 percent in financial year 2016-17 as compared to the previous year, while the total direct investment inflows remained $ 14.3 billion during the period under review. Minister In-charge of Prime Minister's Office informed this to the National Assembly on Monday in a written response to a question. The year-on-year basis, foreign direct investment was recorded at $ 2.7 billion with an increase of 26.9 percent in 2012-13; $ 2.85 billion with an increase of 6.8 percent in 2013-14; $ 2.8 billion with a decrease of 1.7 percent in 2014-15; $3.2 billion with an increase of 13.2 percent in 2015-16; and $2.8 billion with a sharp decrease of 11.1 percent in 2016-17.

The House was informed that average per year FDI from FY 2012-13 to FY 2016-17 comes to $ 2,857.74 million, which is higher than the base year FDI $2,099.1 million (2011-12). The countries that agreed to invest in Pakistan during the period include China, USA, UK, UAE, Hong Kong, Switzerland, Italy and the Netherlands.

The House was informed that total internal and external debt of the country at the end of June 2017 stood at Rs 19,633.5 billion. The net internal debt stands at Rs 13,081.4 billion and the total external public debt is $62.5 billion. Giving details of the loans received from international multilateral institutions from January 2013 to June 2017, he informed the House that total amount received stands at $19.7 billion.

During the period, Pakistan received $6.38 billion from International Monetary Fund (IMF), $4.11 billion from Asian Development Bank, $4.96 billion from International Development Association (IDA) of World Bank, $2.84 billion from Islamic Development Bank (IDB) for short term (2 years), $585.4 million from Islamic Development Bank, $565.5 million from International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), $70 million from Trade and Development Bank of Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO), $70 million from Opec Fund, $55.6 million from International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and $26.5 million from Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB).

To another question, the minister informed the House that the government collected Rs 199.69 billion in taxes from mobile phone consumers during the last five years. The government collected Rs 29.9 billion in taxes from mobile phone consumers in 2017-18 (till August), Rs 43.96 billion in tax year 2017, Rs 42 billion in tax year 2016, Rs 46.44 billion in tax year 2015 and Rs 37.39 billion in tax year 2014 from PMCL (Mobilink), Telenor Pakistan (PVT) Limited, CMPAK (Zong), Pak Telecom Mobile Limited (Ufone) and Warid Telecom.

The minister also informed the House that the negative trend in exports is bottoming out and the government initiatives have shown positive results as exports have increased by 11.8 percent and workers' remittances by 13.2 percent during July-August 2017. Earlier, the government has to face embarrassment in the National Assembly due to lack of quorum and Deputy Speaker Murtaza Javed Abbasi was left with no option but to adjourn proceedings of the House till Tuesday (today) without taking up any agenda item.

Pakistan Peoples Party's MNA Ghulam Mustafa Shah pointed out the quorum shortly after the recitation of the Holy Quran. He said that there are important legislation items on the agenda but the House is almost empty. The proceedings of the House remained suspended for 40 minutes, and later the deputy speaker adjourned the House due to lack of the quorum.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2017