ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Thursday said that the government is going to unveil a “home grown plan” to transform Pakistan’s economic landscape with hope to prevent knocking at the doors of International Monetary Fund (IMF) again.
Speaking at 26th National Security Workshop organised by National Defence University (NDU), he reiterated his government’s resolve to transform country’s economic landscape, saying national security and economic security are interlinked.
“Our economic security will automatically be strengthened if we have a robust economy, rapidly growing exports, and an expanding industrial sector,” he maintained.
PM says no one will be allowed to harm economy
Sharif emphasised the government’s commitment to implement a comprehensive “Charter of Economy,” stating that he had also proposed the idea in 2018 as opposition leader in National Assembly and that “we are fully prepared to execute this idea now.”
He stressed the need for privatising all state-owned entities (SOEs), saying the “government must go out of the business as its mandate is only to facilitate the private businesses.”
“We should completely do away with the businesses to save trillions of rupees,” he said, adding that all institutions were on same page and he and the army chief were also fully aligned on this issue.
He said that Pakistan Stock Exchange which crossed 100,000 points on Thursday is the result of team work and close coordination among the federal government and various stakeholders.
Sharif claimed that due to protests sit-ins in capital, the stock market witnessed a sharp decline of about 4,000 points day before yesterday. However, he said that as things returned to normal, the market recovered and reached 100,000 points, which never happened in history of the country.
He said the country was still facing numerous challenges, adding, “We all know that in June 2023 it was touch and go as Pakistan was at the verge of default due to variety of reasons that we all know.”
He highlighted that the government managed to bring the economy out of crisis due to a successful standby agreement with IMF, adding the programme would bring more hardship to masses but the government had no choice.
Other than the economic challenges, the prime minister said the country was also facing the security challenge. He said around 80,000 people had sacrificed their lives in war against terrorism and the economic losses touched US$130 billion.
He said that the menace of terrorism was completely defeated, but it resurfaced and was showing its ugly face as the sad incidents were happening on a daily basis.
“What happened in Parachinar few days back coupled with terror incidents in Balochistan […]are some of the things which we need to stop forthwith,” he maintained.
During question answer session, he said until we do not take a quantum jump in economic growth, the external debt gap could not be filled.
He said in order to get rid of the external debt, we will have to generate our own resources.
As regards the internal debt challenge, the prime minister said the biggest problem was in the power sector, as the power circular debt had touched two and half trillion rupees and the gas circular debt was also growing due to leakages, gaps in management and system, and theft.
He said that tax evasions worth trillions of rupees were being reported that needs to be stopped at all costs.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2024
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