Govt committed to reforms, structural changes for economic prosperity: PM

ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif on Saturday said the government was committed to completing economic turnaround by carrying out long overdue reforms, structural changes and prioritising meritocracy.

Addressing a group of Pakistani students who are getting education in the world leading educational institutes and selected for government’s internship summer scholars programme of Uraan Pakistan, the prime minister said when they took charge of the government during 2023, Pakistan was facing a serious threat of default and their fate was hanging in balance.

“The majority viewed that Pakistan would go into default while the minority thought that we will escape this disaster,” he said, adding that he held marathon discussions with the IMF managing director and assured that Pakistan would not run into default and achieve the IMF programme.

The prime minister said that at that period, the economy was in a bad shape, with galloping inflation touching 38 percent while the policy rate was hovering at 22.5 percent. The business atmosphere in the country was very skeptical.

The joint work paid dividends as now the policy rate was capped under 11 percent. The Uraan Pakistan programme had taken off, he added.

“The road is very challenging as there were long overdue reforms, and the structural changes had not taken place in the last many decades,” he observed, and stressed that Pakistan had to undertake these overdue long structural changes, through untiring and long efforts.

He also referred to reforms and digitisation of Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) and said that they had shown doors to the corrupt people without being influenced.

Now, he said digitisation was the hallmark of FBR, where working had been converted from papers to multiple initiatives, including AI, and faceless interaction. Through enforcement of these measures, the revenue collection had risen from Rs12 billion to more than Rs50 billion in one year, addressing massive tax evasion in one sector alone, he maintained.

The prime minister further emphasised, “We have a long and thorny journey and facing mountain like impediments, but I assure that we will not shy away from discharging our duties in the service of the nation.” He said that he believed in teamwork and never took credit for any achievement, adding that he saluted those who performed and sent those home who did not show well as “delivery is the name of the game; performance is the name of the game.”

Terming the economic challenges as difficult, he resolved that they would have to achieve the targets and if they did not, they would have to face the music.

Underscoring the significance of country’s youth, he said key of success of this country was in their hands and any expenditure on youth was akin to a future investment on the country.

Later, responding to students’ queries, he recollected that during his tenure as chief minister Punjab, his government had initiated scholarship programmes on merit to facilitate the deprived and poor students in the backward areas of the province.

To another question, the prime minister said that due to climate change, Pakistan suffered a lot during the 2022 floods, with economy facing $30 billion losses, despite the fact that the country did not contribute a friction of percent in the global greenhouse effects.

The prime minister, responding to a question, said that during the month of May, Pakistan faced India’s uncalled aggression in the backdrop of Pahalgam incident.

The prime minister praised the armed forces for showing their professional capabilities and courage, saying Pakistan won the conventional war.

He maintained that Pakistan’s nuclear programme was only meant for peaceful purposes and for self-defence.

The prime minister expressed the hope that students would benefit from the Uraan Pakistan initiative and extended his best wishes for their future.