Finance Minister Shaukat Tarin stressed the need for jacking up revenue collection by taking the country’s exports-to-GDP ratio up to 20 per cent from the current 8pc.

He clarified that the government is not going to impose any tax on mobile phone calls, SMS and internet data. A proposal in this regard was mooted but the federal cabinet rejected it, he added.

The first issue is that we don’t have enough revenue, the minister said. We have to enhance the tax-to-GDP percentage to twenty per cent over a period of seven to eight years, he added.