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October 1, 2026
The World Bank calls Pakistan’s turnaround a global model; Punjab now plans digital tax reforms to widen the net and boost revenues.
Pakistan’s economic recovery is being hailed internationally as a reform blueprint, with the World Bank calling it the “Pakistan Model.” World Bank Managing Director of Operations Anna Bjerde said Pakistan’s turnaround is now a “globally recognised model” of reform during a high-level meeting in Islamabad. She credited Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s leadership for “turning the impossible into possible,” adding: “Due to the Prime Minister Sharif’s remarkable and effective leadership, the Country Partnership Framework is now being referred to globally as the ‘Pakistan Model’.
The framework, a 10 year Country Partnership Framework (CPF), commits over $20 billion in development financing from FY2026 to FY2035. Sharif welcomed the deal as a “timely intervention” and said it would focus on clean energy, climate resilience, education and private-sector growth. That macro level momentum is now feeding into provincial reforms, starting with Punjab’s tax system. The Punjab Revenue Authority (PRA) and the World Bank agreed on Monday to evolve a digital set-up to expand the tax base and improve revenue collection.profit.
A World Bank delegation led by Regional Director Michael Roggi and Manager Sylvia Solf met PRA Chairman Moazzam Iqbal Sipra to discuss modernising tax administration along digital lines. They focused on the effective use of digital databases, inter-departmental data integration and the Digital Economy Enhancement Project. Sipra said digital tools would be used to expand the tax base and bring new businesses into the tax net. “Digital data will help identify tax evasion, misappropriation and discrepancies in business records,” he told the delegation.
With World Bank technical and funding support, PRA and the Punjab Information Technology Board (PITB) will jointly prepare a working plan and practical roadmap for digital tax reforms. The plan aims to link datasets across government departments to compare returns, payments and business activity more systematically. The agreement is a reform commitment and planning exercise, not the launch of a finished platform.
The next step is a detailed roadmap clarifying which databases will be integrated, what technology will be deployed and how responsibilities will be divided between PRA, PITB and the World Bank. If implemented as designed, the initiative could tighten compliance, reduce leakage and lift provincial revenues while aligning Punjab’s system with international best practices.
