Pakistan budget slashes food, oil subsidies-report

ISLAMABAD, June 11 (Reuters) - Pakistan will slash fuel, food and fertiliser subsidies to tackle its fiscal and current account deficits, CNBC Pakistan news channel reported on Wednesday, hours before the government was due to unveil its 2008/2009 budget. The total outlay of the budget is estimated at 2,010 billion rupees with 550 billion rupees targetted for development spending, CNBC said, quoting from the government's "Budget in Brief" document. Privatisation Minister Naveed Qamar, the de facto finance minister, is scheduled to announce the budget at 06:15 p.m. (1215 GMT). In an interview on state-run television on Tuesday, Qamar said the budget aimed to provide targetted subsidies for the very poor rather than subsidise the entire nation. "Total budget subsidies on fuel oil, electricity, fertilizers and food items to be reduced to 295.20 billion rupees from 407.48 billion rupees," CNBC said. The channel reported defence spending would be 296.07 billion rupees, compared with 275 billion rupees last year, while education would be 24.62 billion rupees. Tax revenue target for fiscal year of 2008/09 was targeted at 1,251.46 billion rupees, with a 496 billion rupees expected from direct taxation and 755.46 billion rupees from indirect taxation. This compared with 1,005 billion rupees last year. (Reporting by Sahar Ahmed; editing by Simon Cameron-Moore)