ISLAMABAD: Federal Finance Minister Ishaq Dar has said that the government has achieved another milestone as the country’s foreign exchange reserves crossed $17 billion mark and reached $17.2 billion, which is a sign of growing economy.
Dar, in a statement, said that the government was keen to resolve all issues of investors so that they could support the government efforts to achieve higher growth and generate employment opportunities.
The minister also briefed the US investors and businessmen on the economic situation of Pakistan under the auspices of the US-Pakistan Business Council (USPBC) in Washington, DC.
Attracting the investment was one of the top priorities of the government as it was not possible to achieve a higher growth target without increasing the investment to GDP ratio in the economy, he added.
The finance minister also apprised the US investors of positive economic growth indicators and said that the growth rate that averaged around 3 percent in the five years of the previous government had risen by 4.14 percent last year and was projected to rise to 5.1 percent during the current fiscal year.
Inflation, he said, had averaged around 12 percent in the previous government and was brought down to 8.6 percent in 2013-14 and was now projected to decline further to about 5 percent in 2014 15, which will be the lowest in the last 10 years.
Low inflation will increase the purchasing power of the people which bodes well for investors, he remarked. The minister said the tax revenues were up in the first year of the incumbent government by 16.44 percent, rising from Rs1,946 billion to Rs2,266 billion.
This strong performance, he said, has been punctuated during the current fiscal year with a revenue growth of 13 percent until end March compared to the last year despite a massive decline in oil prices that adversely affected the tax collections from the petroleum sector.
