ISLAMABAD: Federal Finance Minister Ishaq Dar has said that the country has made a remarkable economic recovery during a very short span of time which has been appreciated in all over the world by the independent analysts and financial institutions.
Dar said this while addressing an international seminar titled “Crossroads Asia: Dynamics of Peace and Progress”, organised by the National Defence University.
The minister said that Pakistan has initiated a number of projects that would enhance regional connectivity and joint exploitation of regional resources. Giving detail of projects, he said that CASA-1000 project costing nearly $1 billion will originate in Kyrgyz Republic and pass through Tajikistan and Afghanistan and terminate in Pakistan, providing 1000MW of energy.
The Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) gas pipeline project, he said would supply natural gas from Turkmenistan to Afghanistan, Pakistan and India. Thirdly, he mentioned Central Asia Regional Economic Cooperation (CAREC) a partnership of 10 countries including Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyz Republic, Mongolia, Pakistan, China, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. CAREC Ministers, he said have recently approved a $23 billion action plan for undertaking regional connectivity projects in the priority areas in member countries, the Minister said.
Dar said the government desired to achieve growth of around 7% as it was necessary to address poverty incidence and unemployment while improving socio-economic indicators, including health and education.
Giving a brief account of future roadmap he said we foresee GDP to grow gradually to around 7%; inflation to remain in single digits i.e. less than 8%; fiscal deficit to be brought down to 4%; foreign exchange reserves growing to $20 billion; investment-to-GDP ratio brought to 22% and similarly view at industrial sector to grow by 8%. The Minister also envisaged spending around 4% of GDP on education and health, with key social indicators equal or better than regional countries.
