Ishaq Dar rules out any delay in Pakistan’s sovereign commitments

Federal Minister for Finance and Revenue Senator Ishaq Dar has declared that despite facing a raft of challenges Pakistani is heading in the right direction, reported 24NewsHD TV channel.

Talking to a delegation of the Karachi Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Islamabad on Saturday, Ishaq Dar said that the people talking about default should be ashamed of themselves.

The finance minister, however, admitted that problems will not be going away in a day. “We will bring the country out of all the crises but it will take time to thwart these challenges,” he added.

Ishaq Dar reiterated that Pakistan will not default and promised that the government had planned reforms for the country’s long-term betterment.

Ishaq Dar said: “Our main objective today is just to assure you that as your economic team, we are putting in all the efforts to get out of this.”

The minister said “God-willing, we will be coming up with new ideas in the weeks to come. There will be the budget and some work after that as well for Pakistan’s long-term betterment. We will bring an agricultural revolution in Pakistan, [and] a sovereign wealth fund will be created.”

Dar admitted that the tough economic decisions taken by the government had put an “undoubtedly great burden on the business community and the common man”. At one point, he stated that the government’s top priority was to ensure that “there is not a single day’s delay in Pakistan’s sovereign commitments”. Dar asserted that there had been no such delay thus far.

“Some people like to give dates that Pakistan will default on so and so date — they should be ashamed. They should be well-wishers of Pakistan and be loyal to their soil. “Pakistan is a sovereign country. Pakistan has trillions of dollars of assets. If we have external debts of 100 billion, we also have assets,” he maintained.

Dar claimed that one asset relating to gas infrastructure was equivalent to 50pc of Pakistan’s debt.

Recounting the economic difficulties the country faced in 2014, the minister said that one year was difficult but then “everything was normal once things had settled down”. The PML-N leader went on to claim that Pakistan had become the “best economy in South Asia” and the policy rate was 6.5pc when the PTI government took over.

Dar said there were “only two options” available with the parties currently in power when they took over in 2022 — either to “let the previous government stay [in power] and wait for complete destruction to take place, god forbid or to take a bold decision”.