Senate body calls for making FBS an autonomous body
By Asim Hussain

ISLAMABAD—The Senate Standing Committee on Finance, Revenue, Economic Affairs and Statistics, Thursday discussed country’s economic situation.
The committee, which met at the Parliament House today under the Chairmanship of Senator Ahmed Ali on Thursday dwelt on various issues relating to economy and reiterated its earlier demand for making Federal Bureau of Statistics an autonomous organization to ensure the reliability of our basic economic data, upon which all development planning is to be based. The members of the Committee pointed out that the Committee had demanded, during the last three budgets that the Federal Bureau ofStatistics (FBS) be made an altogether independent and autonomous body.
The members of the Committee belonging to the Opposition had reservations regarding the poverty alleviation figures compiled by the Government. Similarly, they also raised doubts about the inflation rate, trade deficit and domestic debt figures. They observed that high-interest rates are ruining the industry and dwindling the exports. They also demanded more judicious and efficient utilization of foreign remittances particularly for setting up new industries to create more job opportunities in the country.
The Minister of State for Finance, Mr. Omar Ayub Khan speaking on the occasion, said that though the Government has achieved major successes in some areas, it is still facing serious challenges in the others. He attributed the rising import bill to high oil prices in the international market and increased consumption of imported raw material in the industries. He said that infrastructure has to be improved; human resource development be taken seriously and the competitiveness of ourindustries has to be enhanced to cope with these challenges.
The Governor State Bank of Pakistan, Dr. Shamshad Akhtar apprised the meeting of the rationale of keeping the interest rates high, which she said is a compulsion to ensure proper liquidity management and to control the inflation. She said that real interest rate is not higher than 1.5%. The Committee decided to hold its meeting in Islamabad next week with a view to have the detailed views of the Ministry of Finance on the points raised in the meeting, whereas the matters pertaining to SBP will be discussed in another meeting scheduled to be held at Karachi during the first week of December this year.
Apart from the Chairman of the Committee, Senator Ahmed Ali, the meeting was attended among others by Senators Asif Jatoi, Nisar Ahmed Memon,Prof. Khurshid Ahmed, Dr. Safdar Ali Abbasi, Muhammad Amin Dadabhoy and Muhammad Ishaq Dar. The Minister of State for Finance Mr. Omar Ayub Khan, Governor State of Pakistan and senior officials of the Ministry of Finance were also present on the occasion.