Finance Minister Shaukat Tarin called on Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani on Saturday, and briefed him on the overall economic situation, moving towards stability in the country. The Prime Minister was informed that during the last one month, inflation had come down by 0.5 per cent, while current account deficit in August 2009 was surplus as against deficit of two billion dollars in August 2008.
Record remittances worth 780 million dollars were received during the last month. Tarin informed the Prime Minister that circular debt of Rs 85 billion had been liquidated and the remainder of Rs 12 to 15 billion would be liquidated in the next couple of weeks, thereby removing a major liquidity issue of the petroleum sector.
He further informed the Prime Minister that the Stock Exchange had responded positively because of economic results and the 100 Index was close to 9500. He said foreign exchange bounced back to 14.4 billion dollars, rising from 6.6 billion dollars in October last year. The Prime Minister directed the Finance Minister to review the performance of some public sector organisations.
Tarin also briefed the Prime Minister about his upcoming visits to New York and Istanbul for the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank meetings. Chairperson of Benazir Income Support Progamme (BISP) Farzana Raja also called on the Prime Minister and briefed him about the implementation status of BISP. Gilani directed the BISP Chairman to ensure complete transparency in the disbursement of money to the poor so that most deserving people could benefit from it.
He said the Waseela-e-Haq initiative by BISP was a major step towards self-employment and welfare of the deserving people. He said this was a fulfillment of the vision of Pakistan People's Party leaders Shaheed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and Mohtrama Benazir Bhutto Shaheed. The Prime Minister said the BISP was a key pillar in the government's policy of rehabilitating the poor masses and getting them out of the vicious poverty cycle. For making it more effective, the government had increased its budgetary allocation to Rs 70 billion in the current financial year, he added.
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