Finance Minister Dr Abdul Hafeez Shaikh on Sunday called on Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf at the PM’s House and briefed him on the economic situation in the country.
The finance minister said the fiscal year 2011-12 ended with a growth of 3.7 percent, an improvement over the last three years.
Similarly, the minister said better performance was visible in the decline in the rate of inflation from 13 percent last year to 11 percent in the year just ended.
The benefit of decline in international fuel prices, the minister said, had been passed on to consumers and the prices of fuel, diesel and kerosene had been brought down three times already during the last 45 days.
The minister said the financial year had also ended with foreign exchange reserves over $15 billion, despite of paying back $1.2 billion to the IMF during the year per schedule.
He said, export remained strong despite global economic crisis and was likely to maintain upward momentum in the year 2012-13 as well.
Shaikh highly appreciated the role of expatriate Pakistanis and said the remittances were at a historic high level over $13 billion.
He expressed satisfaction that the year 2011-12 had also ended with a record level of tax revenue, which was expected to surpass the Rs 1,910 billion, an increase of Rs 450 billion, showing a growth rate of 23 percent, the highest in a single year in Pakistan’s history.
Shaikh said the financial year 2011-12 ended with successful completion of Federal PSDP, where projects benefiting the economy worth Rs 300 billion were undertaken showing 100 percent utilization and completion of more than 200 projects.
The finance minister also briefed the PM on the revival programme of Pakistan Steel Mills for which allocation had been made by Ministry of Finance to ensure the success of the new management of the mills and to gradually increase the output from present 20 percent utilization to 80 percent utilization.
He said recent improvement in the production of electricity sector from 10,000MW to about 14,000MW had relieved the public, but greater efforts were required from the management of the electricity sector and relevant ministries to overcome this challenge on a fast track basis.
Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf expressed his satisfaction with the economic stability and appreciated the successful efforts of the team under the leadership of the finance minister, saying prudent economic policies to be continued.
He also directed that the new year’s PSDP allocated to projects based on regional balance and completion of ongoing projects showed that the maximum benefits could be made available to the public, especially to the people belonging to Balochistan, FATA and other less developed regions of the country.
