Saturday, Pakistan's Finance Minister Ishaq Dar said that the country is headed in the right direction and will not default on its debts, despite what the opposition is saying.
"Pakistan will not go bankrupt because of what the opposition says" (Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf). "The country is going in the right direction, and it is not headed for default," Mr. Dar told businesspeople.
Imran Khan, the leader of the PTI, and other leaders of his party have said that the coalition government led by PML-N will fail because of its "poor policies." Mr. Khan thinks that the country's economy can only get back on track if a stable government takes over after new elections and fixes the problem.
Mr. Dar also said that the opposition was bad for the country's "economic cause." "Also, the opposition is spreading stories about corruption to stop foreign investors from coming to the country. "The PTI needs to get serious and stop messing around with the economy of the country," he stressed.
The way the minister was treated during the last government run by the PML made him sad. "They treated me as if I were a terrorist. And my only crime was fixing the country's economic problems. Mr. Dar said, "I was forced to live in self-exile in the UK for five years."
He also said that the PTI and PML-N governments of the past were wrong for sticking to the policy of devaluing the rupee. "We made the rupee worth less. During Shahid Khaqan Abbasi's time in office, he said, "I made it clear that if a devaluation policy was followed, the government would not be able to stop the devaluation of our currency."
Ishaq Dar didn't agree with the policies of Miftah Ismail, who used to be the finance minister for his party. After getting bail in a NAB corruption case in London in September, Mr. Dar replaced Mr. Ismail and focused on keeping the local currency stable.
During his first few weeks in office, the rupee was going up, but lately it has been going down. Its value against the US dollar is now over Rs230, and foreign currency, especially the US dollar and Euro, is hard to find on the open market.
Mr. Dar said that the national economy could not be used for any more tests. "We are doing everything we can to get the economy back on track," he said, adding that the government had decided to stop wheat smuggling as if it were a war.
Samaa TV said that he said that the way Pakistan was growing when the PML-N government ended meant that it should be in the G20 today. Instead, he said, "Our economy is 46th in the world right now."
When the PML-N government took over in 2013, many people said the country was about to go bankrupt, but the PML-N government was able to stop that from happening.
Mr. Dar said this about the problems the PDM government is facing right now: "We will have to work hard and put our attention on improving Pakistan's macroeconomic indicators."
"Here, the rich get their loans written off, but if a few thousand poor widows don't pay back their loans on time, their homes are taken," he said.
Gohar Ijaz, one of the businesspeople who took part, asked the government to lower the interest rate. Even though inflation was high, Turkey had kept its interest rate low. "Why can't we do the same?" he asked.
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