Finance Minister Senator Ishaq Dar while presenting the National Economic Survey said that the rate of economic growth in the current financial year was 0.29 percent.
Web Desk: While releasing the survey during the media conference in Islamabad, the finance minister said that the national economic survey includes all sectors including socio-economic development, agriculture, energy, IT, industry.
He said that even after the 2013 elections, the Pakistan Muslim League (N) government had introduced the three-ease strategy and has still made a plan on the five-ease strategy. All sectors including socio-economic development, agriculture, energy, IT, industry are involved. When the government assumed responsibility, it was a difficult situation.
He said that there were talks of bankruptcy of the country, the need for financing was increasing, Allah has always kept Pakistan under His protection, the decline of the economy has stopped and now work is going on for development.
He said that during the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf era, the GDP of the first year was 1.6% and then it became negative in the next year. So there was terrorism, electricity loadshedding in the country and the situation was bad, after the three eases, now the future road map has been made on the five eases policy.
He said that the current financial year was a very challenging year, the indicators of restoring macroeconomic stability are included in the economic survey, restoring macroeconomic stability is the government’s goal, in 2017, Pakistan was the 20th economy in the world, which is now at the 40th place. Yes, they want to take the country back to where it had reached in 2017.
Ishaq Dar said that the government wants to follow the path of inclusive growth, most of the tax collections are going towards debt and interest payments, due to mismanagement and increasing policy rates, the debt has increased, which is much more damaging than the global economy. It broke all the promises made with the IMF at the international level, this gave a big blow to the confidence of Pakistan at the international level.
The finance minister said that the growth of world trade has decreased five times, due to floods there was also a lot of destruction, more than 30 billion dollars were lost due to floods, the most difficult reforms for the government coming with a mandate of five years. It is easy to do, but the present government has done the most difficult reforms in a year.
He said that the restoration of this program was necessary to restore the reputation of Pakistan, it is a painful process but it has to be done to get the country out of a difficult situation. Granted, the first choice was to default and become Sri Lanka and the second choice was to bite the bullet but fulfill the global commitments.
He said that we made all the payments on time and now the situation is improving, the problems of LCs have also been resolved, monetary policy has been tightened to reduce inflation, one of the main reasons for where we stand today is lack of confidence. .
The finance minister said that the real effective exchange rate (dollar rate) should be Rs 244 according to Bloomberg but the value of the dollar was artificially inflated. When I took charge, the dollar started to fall. I also said then. The dollar will come to its real value, but I went to Washington, I don’t know behind what secret hands were activated that the dollar became expensive.
He said that apart from fertilizer and wheat, foreign exchange has been smuggled in huge amounts, the regime has changed in our neighboring country and their needs are also met with this. The first priority of the government is to make timely payments. Discuss why Pakistan has not defaulted? Why Pakistan did not become Sri Lanka is a matter of sitting outside and it is unfortunate, strict financial policy will continue to take the country out of crisis.
Ishaq Dar said that barter trade has been decided which is a good decision and should be expanded further, the proposal of barter trade with other countries including Yemen and Sudan is under consideration.
He said that GDDP remained at 0.29 percent, inflation was 29.2 percent, the average rate of inflation from July to November of this financial year was eighteen percent.
The Finance Minister said that FBR’s revenue collection growth was 16.1%, FBR collected 6210 billion rupees in the current financial year and now they are trying to expand the tax net, seven lakh new taxpayers by March. But more than nine lakh taxpayers were included in the net.
He said that the current account deficit has improved by 76%, the current account deficit has decreased to the level of 3.3 billion dollars, imports have decreased from 72.3 billion dollars to 52.2 billion dollars in July-May.