Economy needed stabilization policies to deal with deficits: Hammad Azhar

ISLAMABAD: Minister of State for Revenue Hammad Azhar on Friday said that Pakistan’s economy needed stabilization policies to deal with deficits.

Talking with ARY news, Hammad Azhar said that the nation would have to go through a short phase of inflation to put the economy on the upward trajectory.

Responding to a question, the minister said that hid did not agree with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) report which forecasted Pakistan’s growth to 2.9 per cent in 2019 and 2.8 percent in 2020 amid ongoing macroeconomic adjustment challenges.

He the minister said that beside IMF, World Bank and Asian Development Bank also issued their reports about Pakistan economy and added that different growth rate was projected in the reports.

IMF said that if Pakistan would not accept their program then Pakistan’s growth rate to fall to 2.9 per cent, Hammad Azhar said and added that finance minister Asad Umar was holding talks with IMF in the United States and in this situation IMF would definitely try to give its positive narrative.

“IMF promotes stabilization but not growth”, he said and added that that he did not know that in which perspective IMF’s officials gave the statement.

The minister said that during the first year of PML-N’s government inflation rate was above 10 per cent and in PPP’s tenure it was around 25 per cent.

He said that former governments did not take steps to resolve economic issues and added that they were trying to strengthen private sectors through economic stability.

The minister said that they would include 5 million people into tax net this month. He said that the government was establishing mega data base in collaboration with different institutions to take action against tax evaders. He said that they were introducing reforms in FBR to increase its performance and added that FBR could not achieve its targets during the last 10 years.

Hammad Azhar said that the government had given subsidy worth Rs97 billion on petroleum products. The minister said that they were trying to put minimum burden on lower income groups.