Caretaker Finance Minister Shamshad Akhtar said on Saturday that Pakistan is on track with its International Monetary Fund (IMF) program and is expected to achieve economic growth of 2-3% in the current fiscal year.
IMF has agreed to begin talks with Pakistan from November 2 for the release of $710 million second loan tranche.
An IMF team led by Nathan Porter will arrive in Pakistan on the first review under the current Stand-By Arrangement (SBA) of $3 billion.
In an exclusive interview with SAMAA TV, the finance minister said that the government has prepared a detailed presentation for the IMF that will show that Pakistan is meeting all the structural benchmarks under the program.
"We have no need to convince the IMF," she said. "We have all the evidence."
Akhtar also said that the government is committed to capital market reforms and is working to make it easier for businesses to raise capital from the market.
"We are sending the capital market reforms to the cabinet for approval," she said.
"We want companies to list their businesses in the capital market instead of going to banks for loans."
On the issue of the exchange rate, Samshad Akhtar said that it depends on the supply and demand of the market. She added that it was the responsibility of the relevant institutions to crack down on currency gambling and prevent smuggling.
"Inflation is also decreasing," she said. "The benefit of reduction in the price of commodities at the global level is being passed on to the public."
The interim finance minister opined that tweaking interest rate controls inflation and that the interest rate is set by the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP), not by finance ministry.
On the economic recovery program, Samshad Akhtar said that it has been prepared by the finance ministry on instruction of caretaker prime minister and proposes reforms in many sectors.
In a separate speech at a ceremony in Karachi, Akhtar said that Pakistan's economic growth rate will be 2-3% in the current fiscal year. She also said that agriculture and services will play an important role in the economic development of Pakistan.
"Good news has started coming from the economic front," she said. "The value of rupee is stabilizing, but we cannot physically intervene in it. We are in the IMF program and cannot artificially prop up the rupee," the minister concluded.
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