KARACHI: International Monetary Fund (IMF) Resident Mission Chief Dr Tokhir Mirzoev has said that Pakistan’s economy is improving steadily, while the CPEC is a big opportunity for boosting the country’s economy.
Addressing a seminar titled, ‘State of the Economy and Way Forward’, organised by Applied Economics Research Center (AERC), Karachi University, he said, “Currently, Pakistan’s economic growth rate stands at 4.6 percent, while India leads the region with 7.5 percent growth rate; Bangladesh interestingly has a better growth rate of 6.8 percent than China’s, which is 6.3 percent.”
He said Pakistan’s exports had declined and were just 9 percent of the total GDP, but low oil prices and strong remittances helped in maintaining the economic stability.
Mirzoev said that inflation had come down and budget deficit had also been reduced, which showed the economy was improving. He said although the tax collection had risen to 11 percent, still it must be raised to at least 20 percent.
“The IMF programme in Pakistan started in 2013 to pull the country out of the financial crisis through $6.7 billion, out of which $5.2 billion have been disbursed to this date.
The programme envisages structural reform priorities for the energy sector, tax to GDP ratio, privatisation of public sector enterprises, and lastly for improving the business environment,” Mirzoev elaborated. He said that IMF did impose conditions on Pakistan, which included removal of subsidies in the public sector.
The IMF resident chief added that Pakistan’s foreign debt was around 64 percent of its total GDP, which was not very worrying, as many states had more debt ratios. “But Pakistan has to take advantage of the significant opportunity that has come in the shape of low oil prices by reforming the energy sector,” he hastened to add.
He further said UK, Turkey, Korea and many European countries remained dependent on IMF relief programmes, and now they were progressing.
