Finance Minister meeting with Deputy Secretary of Treasury

The Finance Minister Muhammad Ishaq Dar met Deputy Secretary Treasury Sarah Bloom Raskin at the margins of IMF and World Bank Spring meetings and briefed her about the economic recovery plan of the government. He said that all macro economic indicators were pointing towards a strong resurgence of Pakistan economy.

Senator Dar noted that the fiscal deficit is well below the target for the current year, inflation is down to single digit, and foreign reserves have crossed the $ 10 billion mark. The finance minister said that the stock market in the country is booming and has reached the 29000 mark. He apprised the Deputy Secretary Treasury about bold reforms undertaken by the government in the energy sector and the Government’s roadmap of overcoming energy shortage in the medium and long term.

The Government, he said, had cleared the circular debt and as a result was able to add 1700 MWs of electricity to the national system, which resulted in growth in large scale manufacturing.

He opined that as a result of focused and result oriented government policies, we had a successful review of the IMF program and are all set for third review having met all benchmarks.

The Deputy Secretary congratulated the Finance Minister on a very successful launch of the Eurobond and appreciated strong economic recovery. She expressed interest in learning about the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) compliance.

In response, the finance minister informed that legislation towards that end was well on track.

April 10, 2014
Washington, DC