Minister stresses continuation of policies

ISLAMABAD:

Planning Minister Ahsan Iqbal lamented on Wednesday frequent disruptions of the economic policies of the country, stressing that the benefits of the newly-achieved stability would trickle down to the people in a year or two, provided that the current government’s policies continued.

Addressing a ceremony at the Rawalpindi Chamber of Commerce and Industry (RCCI), Iqbal said that it was the fourth time Pakistan’s economy was taking off but more important was that “this flight must be made sustainable”.

The minister pointed to positive economic indicators, saying that in the one year of the government interest rate had been brought from 23 to 12%, stock market had rose from 40,000 points to well above 100,000 points, while Investors’ confidence gradually increased in in Pakistan.

In April 2022, when the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N)-led Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) coalition government took over, the foundations of the Pakistani economy were shaken, as the country was on the verge of default but the government pulled the country out of that crisis.

“We took tough decisions by putting our politics at stake. We fulfilled the conditions the [previous Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf] PTI government had agreed with the IMF [International Monetary Fund] and [because of which] our politics was affected,” he told the event.

Commenting on the disruption in the government policies, he said that Pakistan first took off in the 1960s. Then in in 1991, Pakistan took the second flight when Nawaz Sharif became the prime minister for the first time.

“Had Nawaz Sharif’s reforms been continued, we would have been ahead of Malaysia, but because of political instability, there was no continuity of policies. In 2013, we gave the Vision-2025, which if continued, would have placed Pakistan among world’s top economies by 2030,” the minister stated.