F.P. Report
ISLAMABAD: Federal Finance Minister Shaukat Tarin hinted that inflation might not be easing any time soon as prices are increasing all over the world due to Covid-19 pandemic.
The minister was addressing a presser in Islamabad on Wednesday. Taking a U-turn on the government’s earlier claim that inflation would be deceased in the next couple of months, Tarin opined that inflation would keep on hitting the country for the next 2-3 months as prices were surging internationally owing to the coronavirus pandemic.
He, however, said that to offset the effects of inflation, the government would provide subsidy to 200 million households through Ehsas Programme and it would also multiply the income of the middle class. He said the government would provide Rs10 billion loans through Kamyab Programme.
The finance minister said people should not worry if our currency was losing its value saying that economy was moving in the same direction as the government wanted it to be.
“We have to go to the International Monetary Fund for bringing about an improvement in the economy,” the minister said adding that God willing the government would approve the mini-budget from Senate till Feb 2.
It is pertinent to mention here that the IMF’s Executive Board which was going to take up Pakistan’s sixth review of the $6-billion Extended Fund Facility on January 28, has postponed its meeting. Now the review would be held next week on Wednesday (February 2), according to the IMF website.
Tarin said that the country had to face several financial challenges. He said due to Covid-19, the country faced so many problems. When we were about to become economically stable, the corona epidemic hit us, he said adding but we weren’t hit so hard due to the intelligent strategy of Prime Minister Imran Khan as we did not shut down our economy and instead introduced smart lockdown.
