FinMin warns unmanaged population growth to dampen economic gains

ISLAMABAD (APP) - Minister for Finance and Revenue Senator Muhammad Aurangzeb on Monday urged stakeholders to move beyond policy prescriptions and deliver an actionable roadmap to address population pressures, warning that unmanaged growth would continue to undermine Pakistan’s economic progress.

“Whatever real GDP growth we achieve will be a dampener if we don’t manage the population and if we don’t control it,” he said while addressing a two-day Pakistan Population Summit-2025.

The minister said Pakistan had long understood the nature of its demographic and climate challenges but had struggled to implement solutions.

“We have known ‘the what’ and ‘the why’ for the longest time. There is no dearth of policy prescriptions. Everything now has to do with implementation and execution – the how part of it.”

He said Pakistan’s two “existential issues” – climate change and population – must be confronted directly if the country aimed to unlock its long-term economic potential.

Citing a World Bank study projecting Pakistan as a $3 trillion economy by 2047, he stressed: “The roadmap was very clear – these two existential issues have to be recognized, and more importantly, negotiated, if we are to realize our full potential.”

The minister stressed that the population debate had to be mainstreamed into national fiscal planning. “While Ministers of Climate Change, Health and Population Welfare lead sectorally, it is really the finance ministers who make it mainstream,” he noted.

“If we are not making it part of our budgeting process and planning process, it remains an academic discussion.”

He welcomed the participation of religious scholars and stressed that family planning had no conflict with religion.

Recalling an earlier engagement, he said, “I was very encouraged when Mufti Usmani came with a fatwa explaining in detail that this has nothing to do with religion. We cannot shy away from action because of limitations that hold us back.”

The minister warned that both climate-induced shocks and unchecked population growth were already imposing heavy economic costs. “Flooding this year is going to shave off roughly 0.5 percent from our GDP growth forecast. And with respect to population, whatever real GDP growth we achieve will be a dampener if we don’t manage it,” he added.

He said Pakistan’s rapid rise in global crypto participation highlighted the urgency for a regulated enabling framework. “We are now number three in terms of crypto participation,” he said, adding “That is why having the Virtual Asset Regulatory Authority is so important – so young Pakistanis can participate, but in a regulated way.”