ISLAMABAD: Minister for Planning, Development, and Special Initiatives Ahsan Iqbal on Saturday said the size of the federal development budget under the Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP) has been set at Rs 800 billion for the upcoming fiscal year 2022-23.

He said the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth target for the upcoming fiscal year has been fixed at 5% while in the previous year it was 4.8%.

Talking to media in Islamabad, after chairing the meeting of the Annual Plan Coordination Committee (APCC), Iqbal said the growth numbers in the current fiscal year were nothing to do with the targets because the target was set as per the old base year, however, the re-basing jacked up the growth to 6%.

Ahsan Iqbal said out of the total outlay, Rs 100 billion would be utilized through the Private Public Partnership (PPP).

He said the meeting reviewed the recommendation for the development budget 2022-23 presented by various concerned stakeholders of the federal as well as provincial governments.

“Under the feedback of those recommendations, we will present the proposals for the federal PSDP 2022-23 with a total outlay of Rs 800 billion to the National Economic Council (NEC) on June 07, 2022”, he added.

The minister said that the government was expecting that keeping in view the country’s increasing requirements, the PSDP would have increased up to Rs 2 trillion.

He said the next year’s development budget strategy had been kept prudent to make the budget as per the country’s needs.

He said this year, the government was going to allocate 90% of funds for the ongoing schemes while new schemes would get only 10% of the total size.

Under the vision of Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif, he said the government was allocating funds to protect the projects of basic needs such as water, infrastructure, health, and education.

The minister said the funds for the Diamir Bhasha Dam, and other key water reservoir projects were also being protected.

He said in the infrastructure sector, roads, railways, and port and shipping projects were also being protected.

The minister added that under the federal PSDP 2022-23, the government was providing a big share of the total volume to the Balochistan province and would complete the ongoing schemes in the province as soon as possible.

To fast-track China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), he said we have increased the allocation for the projects under CPEC, especially in Gwadar.

For merged areas of FATA, he said the government had proposed an allocation of Rs 50 billion.