On Saturday, Pakistan's Finance Minister Ishaq Dar stressed that despite the opposition's rhetoric, Pakistan is on the right track and will not default.
Pakistan would not go into default due to the opposition's lies (Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf). During a meeting with business leaders, Mr. Dar confidently assured the crowd that the country was on the right track and would not be entering default.
PTI head Imran Khan and others in his party have been warning that Pakistan will fail due to the "bad policies" of the coalition government led by PML-N. According to Mr. Khan, the only way to stabilize the economy is to hold new elections and have a stable government take charge.
Mr. Dar went on to say that the opposition was harming the country's "economic cause." To add insult to injury, the opposition is spreading false allegations of corruption in an effort to discourage foreign investment in the country. He stressed that PTI leaders must stop playing with the country's economy and adopt a more serious stance.
The minister expressed regret over the way he was treated by the previous PML administration. "They acted like I was a terrorist." And all because I was trying to fix the country's economic issues. I had to go into self-imposed exile (in the UK) for five years," Mr. Dar explained.
And he criticized the PTI and PML-N governments for continuing the rupee devaluation policies after they took office. The rupee's value was lowered by us. He said, "I made it plain during the time of Shahid Khaqan Abbasi that the government could not stop the depreciation of our currency if a devaluation policy was adopted."
Ishaq Dar had harsh words for his party's previous finance minister, Miftah Ismail. Mr Dar succeeded Mr Ismail and immediately set out to stabilize the local currency upon his September return from London, where he had been detained on corruption charges related to the NAB.
The value of the rupee rose during his first weeks in power, but it has been falling in recent months; the dollar now costs more than Rs230, and foreign cash, notably the dollar and the euro, is hard to come by on the open market.
Mr. Dar has stated that the national economy can no longer be used as a laboratory. He stated that the administration had chosen to put a halt to the widespread practice of wheat smuggling and that they were doing everything they could to restore economic stability.
He was quoted as saying on Samaa TV that given the rate of growth Pakistan had been experiencing at the time the PML-N government left office, the country should now be a member of the Group of Twenty. Instead, "our economy is today rated 46th in the world," he said.
The finance minister noted that when the PML-N gained power in 2013, many predicted a default, yet it was avoided.
Mr. Dar remarked, "We will have to work hard and focus on improving Pakistan's macroeconomic metrics," in reference to the difficulties now facing the PDM government.
The loans of a few thousand poor widows are repossessed if their repayments are late, but the loans of the wealthy are forgiven, he claimed.
Gohar Ijaz, one of the involved businessmen, has asked the government to lower the interest rate. He questioned why we couldn't maintain a low interest rate like Turkey had done despite rising inflation.
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