Finance Minister Ishaq Dar says the government has rescued the crippling economy and averted default in the face of serious inherited challenges on internal and external fronts.
He made these remarks while launching Economic Survey for the outgoing fiscal year at a ceremony in Islamabad on Thursday.
Ishaq Dar said the outgoing fiscal year was a challenging one. However, the government tried to effectively cope with the situation. As a result, he said, the declining trend has stopped and now efforts are underway to revamp economy and bring financial stability to the country.
Presenting the statistics of the Economic Survey, Ishaq Dar said primary balance surplus of over ninety-nine billion rupees has been recorded while the Current Account Deficit reduced by seventy six percent to 3.3 billion dollars during the first ten months of the current fiscal year. He said the tax collection increased by eighteen point one percent to 6938.2 billion rupees.
The Finance Minister said GDP posted a growth of 0.29 percent, terming it a realistic one. He said agriculture grew by 1.55 percent while industry, manufacturing and construction sectors showed negative growth due to slowdown in global and domestic economic activity and contractionary macroeconomic policies.
He said the IT sector posted a trade surplus of 1.72 billion dollars, showing an increase of 16.7 percent compared to the last year.
Ishaq Dar said electricity, Gas, and Water Supply and the other sub-sector of Industry posted a growth of six percent. Services Sector growth remained 0.86 percent. During Jul-Mar FY2023, 21,117 new companies were incorporated with Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan, which is 5.9 percent higher than the same period last year.
The Finance Minister said that imports witnessed a decline of 29.2 percent while the exports 12.1 percent. He said the foreign direct investment remained 1170 million dollars.
He said literacy rate increased in both rural and urban to fifty four and seventy seven point three percent respectively.
Ishaq Dar said that despite economic constraints, the government has focused on providing relief to different segments of society. These included Kissan package worth 1800 billion rupees, enhancing allocation for Benazir Income Support Program and the recent reduction in the prices of petroleum products.
The Finance Minister said government’s vision is to restore macroeconomic stability and achieve inclusive and resilient growth trajectory. He said the government has now given a roadmap of five Es for the next year. He said exports, equity, empowerment, environment and energy will serve as a driving force for the economy.
Ishaq Dar was highly critical of the fiscal management of previous government saying its failure to fulfill sovereign commitments shook the country’s credibility. He said we took the most difficult structural reforms at a huge political cost just to put the direction right.
The Finance Minister said the coalition government is committed that all sovereign liabilities must be paid on time. He said the coalition government paid back a debt of 6.5 billion dollars, including 5.5 billion dollars commercial banks debt and bond worth one billion dollars.
Regarding the dollar exchange rate, Ishaq Dar said our currency is under value and it is depreciating due to certain reasons and we are trying hard to address this issue.
Minister for Planning and Development Ahsan Iqbal said we have doubled the development budget to eleven hundred billion rupees. He said the budget of HEC has been increased to 60 billion rupees from twenty six billion rupees. He said eighty billion rupees in the development budget will include important initiatives aimed at development of the country.
Responding to a question, Finance Minister Ishaq Dar assured that given the space available, the government will try its best to extend maximum relief to the salaried class.
