ISLAMABAD: Former finance minister Ishaq Dar has said Prime Minister Imran Khan’s visit to Washington has failed to bring any economic benefit to the people of Pakistan.
“There is no tangible result of the visit,” he said during his interview to Voice of America, adding: “By no means, it was helpful in improving trade and economic ties between the two countries.”
Dar was of the view that the tour failed to overcome the country’s socio-economic problems. “What was achieved during the tenure of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) was much better, in term of strategic and economic cooperation,” he claimed.
About Imran Khan’s traveling to Washington by commercial flight, Dar dubbed it as a public relations stunt.
These are cosmetic measures on the part of the present government in the name of austerity, he added.
He claimed that it was the PML-N government that had overcome militancy under the National Action Plan (NAP). Pakistan was brought out of grey list of Financial Action Task Force (FATF) in 2014. This was the result of the effective security and financial measures taken by the previous government.
He contended there was no role of PTI’s government, in bringing Pakistan out of the blacklist of FATF.
Ishaq Dar said the reforms agenda introduced by the previous government had proved very successful in projecting Pakistan as a peaceful country worldwide. He also criticized the PTI’s government on account of its economic policy, stating that it had brought the country at the verge of economic collapse.