Premature to predict actual volume of investment coming from Saudi Arabia: minister

ISLAMABAD: While terming the meeting with Saudi officials very productive, Finance Minister Asad Umar said it was premature to forecast the actual volume of investment coming from the Saudi Arabia.

Mr. Umar, while speaking to a private TV channel, said the government was exploring all other opportunities to strengthen the national economy.

He said that the situation of uncertainty in national economy would be cleared by mid of October as the economic reforms were on the top of the government’s priorities.

Read: Finance minister rebuffs claim of $10bn deal with Saudi Arabia

He said recently a team of IMF had visited Pakistan but it had nothing to do with any bailout package. He said the government also wanted to enhance exports, promote investments and industrial development in the country for producing exportable surplus and fetching the foreign exchange reserves.

The finance minister said the forex reserves were under pressures as every month about US$ 2 billion were spent to meet different financial needs of the country.

He said the government had inherited a budget deficit of Rs 2,300 billion from the previous government that was build due to the ill policies, which destroyed the economy and pushed it to the debt trap.

He said the incumbent government would control its expenditures by adopting austerity and would never spent national money on luxury lifestyle.

Asad said the government was not intending to privatize the state owned enterprises including PIA, OGDCL and power distribution companies.

The minister said the national institutions would be developed by bringing the experienced and professionals to turn them into a profitable entity for the nation.

The middle income people would be provided health and education cards to bring them into the social safety nets and provide them matching facilities.