'Let patient stabilise': Hammad Azhar on national economy

ISLAMABAD: Federal Minister for Economic Affairs Hammad Azhar on Tuesday took to Twitter to hit back at criticism of the PTI government’s economic policies.

Responding to a tweet by a journalist who slammed the country’s low GDP growth rate of 2.8, he questioned: “If it was so simple than why Moody’s downgraded Pak economy when it was growing at 5% & upgraded it now?”

“Growth bubble based on highest ext deficits, depleting forex reserves took Pakistan near Default & its economy in ICU. Let patient stabilise before expecting it to sprint.”

In another tweet, the minister said: “Furthermore, the avg of PPP, PMLN era 2008-18 econ growth is approx 3.5%. And this is after including the overstated growth numbers of ‘figure fudging era’.

In a series of tweets earlier on Saturday, Hammad Azhar had said Pakistan’s public debt increased from “72% to 84% of GDP” during the fiscal year 2018-19 as close to half this increase came from devaluation.

“The devaluation became inevitable due to flawed econ[omic] policy of previous govt that led to highest external deficits, depleting forex reserves, highest debt servicing,” the minister said.

“Also,Rs1.2tr of cash reserve was creating by one time debt before moving towards policy of zero borrowing from SBP.”