Federal Minister Ishaq Dar vows to revive economy

Islamabad: Federal Minister Ishaq Dar has vowed to revive the economy, saying that the speculators will not be allowed to play with the local currency.

Talking to the media persons in Islamabad on Wednesday, he said stabilizing the local currency and reducing inflation and interest rates are priorities of the government.  He said we do not believe in mere verbal claims rather history is the testimony of our economic performance.

Ishaq Dar expressed satisfaction over the appreciation of the rupee over the last two days saying this has reduced our loans.

The Federal Minister said the country is currently faced with the worst economic crisis because of the mismanagement of the previous government of PTI. He said it was because of the efforts of former Finance Minister Miftah Ismail that the country averted default. He however said that the mess left behind by the PTI government could not be cleared in six months.

Ishaq Dar regretted that the PTI government during its last days in office violated the international agreements to take political mileage.

As regards the case against him, Ishaq Dar said it is a fake. He said he has been a consistent taxpayer over the last thirty-four years and that he never delayed his tax returns. He said the previous government also canceled his passport and it was the current coalition government that issued him a passport.

Speaking to the media on arrival at the Finance Ministry, Federal Minister Ishaq Dar said the speculators will not be allowed to play with the local currency. He rejected the impression that the PML(N) government in its tenure between 2013 and 2018 injected dollars into the market to keep the rupee overvalued. 

He said we rather took the foreign exchange reserves to a record level of twenty-three billion dollars. He said we believe in the market economy, recalling it was the PML-N government that introduced market-based exchange rate. Ishaq Dar said the country is facing difficult challenges but these will be tackled as was done in the past.