'Bad days ahead,' warns Pakistan's Finance Minister Miftah Ismail

Miftah Ismail said the government headed by PM Shehbaz Sharif was suffering because of the economic policies taken by the erstwhile Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf regime led by ousted PM Imran Khan.

Pakistan's Finance Minister Miftah Ismail on August 5 said the government would continue to curb imports for the next three months, as he warned of "bad days" ahead for the cash-strapped country.

Addressing a ceremony at the Pakistan Stock Exchange in Karachi, the Minister said the government headed by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif was suffering because of the economic policies taken by the erstwhile Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) regime led by ousted Prime Minister Imran Khan.

"During the previous Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) government, the country's budget deficit was $1,600 billion and in the last four years under the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf regime, that figure ballooned to $3,500," Geo TV quoted Ismail as saying. “No country can grow and be stable with this kind of current account deficit," he asserted.

"When you raise the budget deficit and also increase the loans by 80%, it has an adverse impact on the economy," he explained.

“I will not allow imports to increase for three months and, in the meantime, we will come up with a policy. I understand that growth will be reduced for a bit but I have no other choice,” the Dawn newspaper quoted the Finance Minister as saying.

Pakistan’s import bill for the previous fiscal year stood at $80 billion, while exports amounted to $31 billion. He noted that the current government had to save the country from a possible default and had to take immediate and short-term measures. "Maybe it was unwise in the long-term," he lamented.