ISLAMABAD: Federal Minister for Finance Shaukat Tarin has predicted that the growth rate would move to six percent in the next fiscal year.
Shaukat Tarin while addressing a virtual press conference on Sunday said, “Growth rate is projected at five percent this year and would move further upward to six percent during the next fiscal year.
The finance minister further said that the government has developed short and long-term plans to achieve the target, stressing the need to follow sustainable and inclusive economic growth for everyone in Pakistan.
Tarin said that short, medium and long-term planning had been carried out on some 12 sectors and would be presented before the prime minister by the end of the month, which focuses on price stability.
He said that Pakistan’s position had changed from a country with a surplus of food to one with a deficit that had to import, blaming it on the lack of attention paid to the agricultural sector.
However, the minister said that the issue would be addressed and the problem of price stability by taking administrative steps including, strict action against people engaged in profiteering and hoarding practices and food supply. The government will undertake this through the creation of strategic reserves and dump food wherever people try to revenue, he added.
Tarin said Pakistan had been following the trickle-down approach previously to economic growth but now the bottom-up approach would be utilized as well whereas PM Imran was soon going to take a “major initiative” which would not only focus on the usual areas in the trickle-down approach.
He said that measures would be taken to encourage people to deposit their money in banks so it could be put to more productive use, calling for the money collected from across the country to be spent on the respective provinces instead of nine cities.
While responding to a question about power tariffs, he said the government would not increase tariffs to prevent further burden on the people and the same would follow for taxes. The IMF had been told that money would instead be collected through other “innovative ways” and he had “full hope” that the organization would give space.
Pakistan had fulfilled most of the Financial Action Task Force’s conditions with one or two “transactional items” left so he said the government was hopeful of favorable response in the meeting in June, he explained.
