Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb said on Wednesday that Pakistan had reached a critical turning point, with macroeconomic stability, sustained reforms, and policy continuity restoring confidence and steering the economy toward export-led, long-term growth.<\/p>\n
In an interview with USA Today, the minister said this was opening new horizons for domestic and global investors, and positioning the country for sustainable, long-term economic growth.<\/p>\n
He said this transition was enabled by macroeconomic stabilisation, easing inflation and improved external balances, with the government driving export-led, productivity-based growth through structural reforms, sustaining reform momentum despite challenges, and actively encouraging global investment in emerging opportunities across agriculture, minerals, technology and climate resilience.<\/p>\n
He noted that, for the first time in several years, Pakistan had achieved both a primary fiscal surplus and a current account surplus, signalling a decisive shift away from the cycle of recurring deficits.<\/p>\n
He said that strong remittance inflows had played a critical role in supporting this turnaround, while inflation had fallen sharply from a peak of 38 per cent to single-digit levels.<\/p>\n
He also noted that foreign exchange reserves had risen to over $14.5 billion, providing import cover of approximately two-and-a-half months, while the exchange rate had remained stable, helping to restore investor confidence.<\/p>\n
Aurangzeb emphasised that while macroeconomic stabilisation was an essential foundation, sustainable growth remained the central challenge.<\/p>\n
He pointed out that the economic growth of 2.7pc in the previous fiscal year, though positive, was insufficient to absorb the needs of a rapidly growing population.<\/p>\n
He underlined that Pakistan was consciously moving away from a consumption and debt-driven growth model toward an export-led strategy.<\/p>\n
The current budget, he explained, reflected this shift through structural reforms in taxation, energy pricing, and state-owned enterprises, alongside far-reaching tariff reforms aimed at dismantling decades of protectionism and enhancing global competitiveness.<\/p>\n
He highlighted that Pakistan was aligning its economic strategy with changing global demand patterns, identifying information technology services, textiles, and agricultural exports as key areas with strong potential.<\/p>\n
He said efforts were also underway to simplify the tax regime for exporters and reduce bureaucratic hurdles in order to foster long-term productivity and competitiveness.<\/p>\n
Addressing the broader reform agenda, Aurangzeb ssaid that the privatisation of state-owned enterprises, tariff liberalisation, and restructuring of the energy sector were designed to address deep-rooted inefficiencies that had historically strained public finances.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb said on Wednesday that Pakistan had reached a critical turning point, with macroeconomic stability, sustained reforms, and policy continuity restoring confidence and steering the economy toward export-led, long-term growth. In an interview with USA Today, the minister said this was opening new horizons for domestic and global investors, and positioning the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14475,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14474","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14474","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14474"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14474\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14476,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14474\/revisions\/14476"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/14475"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14474"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14474"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14474"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}