ISLAMABAD: Federal Minister Ishaq Dar rejected the “White paper” issued by Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) on Wednesday and said some points in the report are contrary to facts.
On 4 Jan, PTI issued a white paper comparing the economic performance of the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) and PTI, former finance minister Shaukat Tareen said, “The current account deficit during PML-N tenure in 2018 was $19.2 billion.
He had said the State Bank’s reserves were $9.4bn. During the PTI rule, the current account deficit is reduced by $2bn every month.”
Tareen added the debt-to-GDP ratio increased to 64 percent in 2018. The circular debt increased by Rs1.6 trillion during the 2013 to 2018 period. The PTI government posted 6pc GDP growth despite the pandemic.
On the other hand, he said, the PDM government’s eight months in power took the inflation rate to new heights as the prices of flour, ghee, petroleum products, and household items increased by 100 to 200pc.
The State Bank’s reserves sank to $6.1bn; the default risk rose from five percent to 90 percent, and some 1.5 million textile employees became unemployed, the PTI leader claimed.
During the press conference, Ishaq Dar said, “PTI claimed that in 2018, the financial debt was 7.6% of GDP, when PMLN ended its tenure. It is against fact because the fiscal deficit was 5.8% of GDP when PMLN had left the government, said Ishaq Dar.
He also claimed that PTI increased the fiscal deficit by 2.1%, we left at 5.8% and jacked up to 7.9%.
He said PTI claimed the fiscal deficit has declined by 1.5% and Inflation raised by 10.5%. Again that was the wrong statement, said Dar.
“PTI said they had created 5.5millions of jobs during the tenure, but it is also a wrong statement because every government creates 3.2 million jobs in the tenure, so according to official data from 2019 to 2022 they had created just 3.2 million jobs.
Ishaq Dar said that PTI has tried to mislead the people with the white paper and is also misleading regarding imports and exports.
‘Saudi Arab, China Fuel Forex Exchange of Pakistan’
Finance Minister expressed hope that by the end of the current FY23 financial position of the country will be better than the previous year.
He said the government will complete International Monitory Funds (IMF) program, there would be no chance of default, he added we should stop the rumors of default damaging the economy.
Dar said, “We have saved the state from default and sacrificed our politics.
He said China and Saudi Arabia are ready to fuel up the forex exchange of Pakistan, In response to a question, he said that good news will come from China and Saudi Arabia very soon and we have pulled out the people who left the country in the vortex.
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