Finance Minister
Nirmala Sitharaman meets US Commerce Secretary, discusses bilateral issues
Raimondo is currently on a four-day visit to India. In a series of tweets, the finance ministry said that both the leaders discussed India's G20 priorities among other issues. During their deliberations, Sitharaman and Raimondo also exchanged views on enhancing bilateral cooperation to further boost investment and trade in mutually agreed areas.
IMF 'satisfied' with Pakistan but no deal this week
"We seem to be very close to signing the staff-level agreement, hopefully in the next few days," Dar said in his address during a seminar, Geo News reported. However, the finance minister, while citing his experience of completing 12 reviews of the "one and only" IMF programme Pakistan completed, shared that "it has taken longer than it should have" for Islamabad to complete the pending ninth review.
Pakistan expects $1.3 bn in financing from China's ICBC in coming days
"All our formalities with the ICBC are complete as of last night. We returned them $1.3 billion in the last few months... They are giving it back and have renewed this facility," Dar said, adding that it is possible that $500 million will come in the next few days -- by Monday or Tuesday -- and a further $500 million within 10 days, Dawn reported.
Nirmala Sitharaman meets French FM Bruno Le Maire
Both the leaders agreed to extend the growing economic cooperation between the two countries to new areas like renewable energy, infrastructure and green cities. The ongoing problems due to debt vulnerabilities of several nations also featured during the discussion between the two leaders.
Finance Minister Sitharaman meets ADB President, lauds support to India
Asakawa is on his maiden visit to India after taking over as ADB's President in 2020. Sitharaman encouraged the ADB to complement India's efforts towards infrastructure creation, livelihood generation, green and sustainable growth as well as boosting private investment, through its financial as well as knowledge resources.
Nirmala Sitharaman refuses to provide NPS funds for old pension scheme
"If any state takes a decision for some reason that the funds of NPS can be collected from the Centre, then it will not be available," the Finance Minister said. It needs to be mentioned here that Rajasthan recently announced the OPS for its state employees. In fact, the Congress government has also announced OPS in Himachal Pradesh.
Fund allocation for MGNREGA has not gone down: Nirmala Sitharaman
Addressing a post-budget press conference here, Sitharaman said: "Budget time allocation is one thing... and the scheme itself is a demand-driven scheme, as and when demand increases, we provide funds for it. This has been done in the past years since 2014."
Pakistan's 'mini-budget' for revival of crucial IMF funding
The government through the supplementary bill has proposed to raise the goods and services tax (GST) to 18 per cent from 17 per cent as part of efforts to raise Rs 170 billion ($639 million) in extra revenue during the current fiscal year ending July, The Express Tribune reported.
Petroleum products can be brought under GST if consensus reached: Nirmala Sitharaman
Addressing a post-budget interactive session organised by industry body PHDCCI, she said that if the states agree, then petroleum products can be brought under the GST ambit. The GST Council is scheduled to meet on February 18. Meanwhile, the Finance Minister, during the interactive session with industry captains, said that the government, over the years, has striven to increase public expenditure, which she said would fuel growth.
Too early to gauge spillovers of central bank digital currency: Sitharaman
"Reserve Bank of India has come up with a pilot project in terms of retail and wholesale use of digital currencies for which there are several sandboxes created, so that user cases can be tested. It is only during this process and immediately after that can there be any kind of understanding on how the retail or the wholesale use of digital currencies will have any spill overs for which any action has to be planned. It has been introduced since last December. We will wait for the outcomes from there," the Finance Minister said in her reply.
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