Summary Pakistan expects Saudi Arabia, China to strengthen forex reserves by Jan-end: Dar
ISLAMABAD (Web Desk) - Finance and Revenue Minister Ishaq Dar says Saudi Arabia and China are set to consolidate Pakistan’s foreign exchange reserves much before the close of January.
“Our foreign exchange reserves by the end of June will be much better than you can think,” he told a presser the other day.
The minister said the IMF programme would be completed at all costs, adding China and Saudi Arabi would boost their support for Pakistan. About the current account deficit (CAD), he said the CAD would be around $3 billion less than earlier projections.
Mr Dar again ruled out the possibility of the country defaulting on its foreign debt, insisting that such speculation was being pushed by the PTI. He also rejected the white paper issued by the PTI, saying it was based on lies, selective data and misleading numbers.
The finance wizard disagreed that a threshold committed with the IMF under the eighth quarterly review for contingency budgetary measures had been crossed. "We have collected revenue during the first five months (July to November) of this fiscal year above target."
He said the government would be shortly imposing flood levy on the affluent and a significant gain tax on banks’ foreign exchange earnings to ramp up the revenue.
