ISLAMABAD: <\/p>\n
Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb on Sunday framed the IMF\u2019s recent \u2018Governance Diagnostic and Corruption Report\u2019 as an opportunity to fast-track institutional reforms, insisting the assessment should be viewed as a catalyst rather than criticism of government policy.<\/p>\n
Addressing a press conference, he said the government itself had requested and facilitated the study as part of its commitment to transparency, noting that the IMF had acknowledged progress in taxation, governance, public financial management and procurement.<\/p>\n
While many priority reforms were already under way, he added, the remaining recommendations would be advanced to address structural weaknesses that had persisted for decades. \u201cInstitutional reform remained essential to sustaining Pakistan\u2019s economic turnaround,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Aurangzeb stressed that structural reforms without institutional strengthening would remain incomplete. He linked this approach to the government\u2019s broader shift toward a private-sector-driven, export-led growth model, citing the abolition of the Export Development Surcharge as a key example of this policy direction.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe decision to end the 0.25% levy, along with overhauling the governance of the Export Development Fund, reflected the prime minister\u2019s directive to place the private sector at the centre of economic expansion,\u201d he said. The summary for the cabinet approval, he noted, had already been submitted and implementation would begin immediately once cleared.<\/p>\n
The minister said recent economic indicators pointed to improving momentum, with cement output rising 16%, fertiliser 9%, petroleum 4%, automobiles 31% and mobile phone manufacturing 26% between July and October.<\/p>\n
Large-scale manufacturing, he continued, grew 4.1% year-on-year in the first quarter, reversing last year\u2019s contraction. He cautioned, however, that the challenge was to sustain growth without returning to boom-and-bust cycles driven by external pressures.<\/p>\n
Aurangzeb reported that exports had grown 5%, while IT services rose more than 20% year-on-year, recording consecutive monthly highs in September and October. He described the $3.5 billion Reko Diq-related syndication \u2014 now financially closed \u2014 as a transformational investment expected to generate nearly $3 billion in annual exports once production begins.
Remittances, he said, had reached $38 billion last year and were projected to surpass $41 billion this year, strengthening the current account. \u201cImports were being managed under a reformed tariff regime aimed at improving competitiveness by prioritising raw materials and intermediate goods while phasing out protectionism over four to five years.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ISLAMABAD: Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb on Sunday framed the IMF\u2019s recent \u2018Governance Diagnostic and Corruption Report\u2019 as an…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":317917,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[45,49,48,46,9041,9380],"class_list":{"0":"post-317916","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-economy","12":"tag-latest","13":"tag-pakistan"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/317916","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=317916"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/317916\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/317917"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=317916"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=317916"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=317916"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}