Miftah anticipates a default in the event that Pakistan rejects the IMF.
Maintains that the nation will be secure so long as it participates in the program.
Miftah Ismail, a former minister of finance in Pakistan, stated on Monday in Karachi that he believes the country may default on its debts if it does not approach the International Monetary Fund (IMF) at this critical time.
These thoughts were presented by him during a global conference that took place over the course of two days and was organized by the Economics and Management Sciences Department of NED University.
He stated that during the first three years of our participation in the IMF program, we had no threats to our safety. After that, he continued by saying, “Imports climbed significantly over the course of the first two years, but we were unable to raise exports because we artificially stabilized the rupee.”
In the past, the finance ministers of the Pakistan Muslim League – Nawaz (PML-N)—both the outgoing and the current ministers—developed divergent points of view regarding Pakistan’s engagement with the IMF. Ishaq Dar, Pakistan’s Finance Minister, gave an interview to a private channel in which he stated that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) could not impose its will on the government and added, “If they don’t come then we will manage – no issue.”
This is counter to what Miftah Ismail has been advising us not to do in the past.
Miftah stated, citing a number of important statistics, that the country’s exports had reached $31 billion the previous year, while remittances had hit $30 billion. According to him, the overall income was $61 billion, while the total expenses skyrocketed to $80 billion. He stated that the disparity between income and expenses was $19 billion.
The former Minister of Finance stated that “CPEC is the guarantor of economic development of the country,” adding that the corporations invested in Pakistan after the government offered them credit. CPEC is an acronym for the China Pakistan Economic Corridor.
According to Speaker Shabbar Zaidi, CPEC was damaged during the “cold war” between China and the United States. He stated that Pakistan required fifty billion dollars for energy and improved infrastructure, and he added, “CPEC is our need; it is not an option for us to select.”
According to Professor Dr. Shahid Wizarat, Dean of the College of Economics and Social Development at IoBM University, “devaluation of currency results in cheap exports and expensive imports,” and it also puts local business “out of competition.”
Raising worries over the harsh constraints imposed by the IMF, he proposed that the import of luxury items should be prohibited in order to promote the growth of the local economy and keep inflation under control.
