ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has instructed authorities to route a proportion of Pakistan’s imports through the Gwadar port in the southwestern Balochistan province to “fully operationalize” it, Sharif’s office said on Tuesday.

The prime minister gave the directives while presiding over a high-level meeting on projects under the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a major segment of Beijing’s Belt and Road infrastructure initiative.

The Gwadar port lies at the heart of CPEC, under which Beijing has pledged $65 billion for a network of roads, railways, pipelines, and ports in Pakistan that will connect China to the Arabian Sea and help Islamabad expand and modernize its economy.

PM Sharif said Pakistan-China partnership was currently on the “highest ever level” and urged authorities to strive for the positive outcomes of this partnership, according to his office.

“The Prime Minister directed to import a certain proportion of the domestic imports, especially the goods imported by the government, from Gwadar port,” Sharif’s office said in a statement.

China is a major ally and investor in Pakistan and has often financially assisted Islamabad, including in July last year when Beijing granted Pakistan a two-year rollover on a $2.4 billion loan, providing much-needed breathing space to the cash-strapped South Asian nation to tackle an economic crisis.

The prime minister instructed all the ministries to enhance collaboration for swift execution of CPEC’s second phase and warned against any laxity, according to the statement.

He also called for the provision of “foolproof security” to the Chinese nationals working in Pakistan, who have often been targeted by religiously motivated and separatist militants in Pakistan.

ISLAMABAD: A Pakistani court on Tuesday issued a stay order against a government directive to block cellphone SIMs of users who did not file their tax returns in 2023, as the lawyer of a telecom company argued the decision was taken in violation of the constitution.

Last month, the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR), the country’s tax collection body, ordered the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) to block over half a million SIMs belonging to people required to file taxes but who were not appearing on the active taxpayers’ list.

However, telecom companies were reluctant to implement the directives affecting so many subscribers, prompting the PTA to urge the FBR to revisit its directive.

The discussion continued until the telecom companies decided last Friday to initiate a manual process of disabling the SIMs in small batches. It was widely reported in the local media on Tuesday the Islamabad High Court (IHC) had stayed the implementation of the cellphone blockage until May 27.

“Blocking more than 500,000 SIMs will result in a loss of Rs1 billion annually,” Advocate Salman Akram Raja was quoted as saying by Pakistan’s Geo News channel.

Raja, who was representing Zong, told the court the decision taken by the government was in violation to Article 18 of the constitution, which guaranteed freedom of trade, business and profession.

Pakistan has traditionally faced the challenge of convincing people to file tax returns, but the government has now decided to implement stringent measures to address the problem, particularly in the context of negotiations for a new International Monetary Fund (IMF) loan program.

The IMF has urged Pakistan in the past to enhance revenue collection from non-filers as part of broader economic reforms to support social and development initiatives.

In response, the FBR is taking steps like blocking the SIM cards and considering other punitive measures to enforce tax compliance and widen the tax net.