It never fails. Now for many years, we have been seeing a common trend where the interests associated with real estate manage to hear their views through the Prime Minister, and even before that can be linked to manufacturing or exports, Real estate, real estate tycoons, begin to walk with the government ‘privileges’.
For example, this happened in the PTI government, when in October 2019, a small Kotri of Industrial Ticone met with the then Army Chief Qamar Javed Bajwa, who began in July this year’s IMF program. I just happened a few months later. They came to the meeting with the commitment that the government would not loose the economic settings created by the IMF program, such as high interest rates, but the business community would work together so that “a plate to stakeholders. Set the recommendations to bring the form so that recommendations can be made, according to a press release submitted by the ISPR.
The recommendations for this “path of harmony” are all focused on the property, and a few days later, the then Prime Minister Imran Khan held a special meeting with his economic team, during which he for economic recovery. Many things were discussed, including ways to help small and medium. Enterprises, the so -called public private partnership, ‘sick unit’, and of course ‘construction sector’, for which his financial adviser was instructed to be the FBR and the new Pakistan Housing Authority as well as provincial governments. Work with them too.
This directive was the seed where eventually a package of policies increased from a common amnesty scheme to a large -scale residential property. What was set up as a ‘construction’ package in the name of providing employment for daily wedgers was a way to plow the unannounced wealth widely in the plot file trade, and the real estate sector. Massively taken off.
Everyone knows what happened after that. A resident was formed a large bubble. Massive assets, which are otherwise known as ‘plot files’, were removed from the thin air because more than 2,100 housing projects were registered under the package in FY11 alone. Housing finance increased by Rs 100 billion as the State Bank has declared banks mandatory to allocate five percent of the private sector borrowing portfolio to housing finance.
The PTI government was helped to promote real estate through the temporary suspension of the IMF program, which promoted the property with the advent of Kovide 19 pandemic diseases. The fund program may have denied many elements with whom the property of these years was engineered by the unmanned economic height. Therefore, under the cover of the Covade suspension, the government was free to move forward. The consequences were disastrous, as the property was mostly focused on the trade of assets of the assets such as speculation. In addition to the production of some jobs for daily wages, there was some real activity in coalition industries such as paint and cement. But all this disappeared as the Boom Times ended with the lack of foreign exchange reserves, the arrival of the inevitable inflation tsunami predicted rapidly due to the large -scale supply of money. It was, and the final restart the IMF program, which suffered two abortions, begins in 2021 and in 2022 before the elderly resumes from August 2022.
Khan was sorry to make such a heavy bet with the property of this country with an immovable property. These are ruthless and dishonest speculations, and many people who bought fake assets that these people sell-so-called plot files-also expressed regret over their investment because of the height of the construction package. During the schemes collided with one another. . This is the time when buyers of these ‘plot files’ realized the truth about what they had bought – a piece of paper that promises to deliver a piece of land to a piece of land in later history. , But literally no one was assured to make sure that it would actually ensure that. Keep the promise.
Shahbaz Sharif’s government initially shifted to power in 2022 to open the racket in its early days. In the budget announced in June this year, he imposed a tax on all people who own more than one immovable property in Pakistan. He introduced the idea of ​​’understood income’. The idea was to discourage assets storage and speculation investment in real estate. And he worked.
But now, they too have gone off the trains. In December 2024, the same Prime Minister announced the establishment of a ‘Task Force’ for accommodation, and gave a broader mandate to develop a ‘growth framework’ for property development, as well as with tax privileges. It will need to promote development. Sector
A few days ago, the task force reported its recommendations. As always, these recommendations are included in the language of “low -income housing”, and some of them claim that the purpose is to “buyers” for the first time. But the original meat comes where industry suggestions begin, such as the property sales tax up to 4PC up to 4PC, the buyer’s tax from 4PC to 0.5pC, and completely eliminating federal excise duties on property transactions.
This is how the gravity train begins. It never fails. The real estate racket is strong in this country for a number of reasons. First of all, a mass accumulation of tax -related wealth that revolves around the system, awaits amnesty schemes or any kind of ponze scheme, such as the plot file rackets that promote itself. The second is a lack of channels to save the formal sector. When you can only invent fake assets on paper, and find ready buyers for them, and no questions are asked about the source of funds, why bother to go to another work work. Be bothered? In the coming days, a powerful lobby that runs these rackets in Pakistan is likely to rair in Imran Khan in the same way.
The author is a business and economy journalist.
X: @Khumosin
Dawn, appeared on February 6, 2025
