Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi has urged businessmen to bring back at least 30% of their wealth to Pakistan ahead of the federal budget 2026-27. \u201cThe business community are requested to bring back at least 30% of their money from abroad,\u201d Naqvi said while addressing an event at Federation House in Karachi on Tuesday. The minister\u2019s statement comes at a crucial juncture as Islamabad prepares to repay $3.5bn to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) this month and faces pressure on its foreign exchange reserves Pakistan failed to reach an agreement with the UAE to roll over the debt for the first time in seven years. Islamabad will now repay the amount by the end of this month, putting significant strain on its foreign exchange reserves, which stand at about $16 billion, enough to cover just three months of imports, The News reported. Pakistan is holding talks with Saudi Arabia and China to secure financial support, according to people familiar with the matter, The News reported while quoting a Bloomberg report. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) also reached an initial agreement with Pakistan last month for the disbursement of a loan instalment of about $1.2 billion from a $7 billion funding programme. Pakistan has received about two dozen bailouts from the global lender since the 1960s. Addressing the business community earlier today, the interior minister disclosed that around $100 billion went abroad over the past three to four years, stressing that even partial repatriation could provide significant economic relief. \u201cIf businessmen decide today, $10 billion can come back before the budget,\u201d the security czar added. \u201cWe do not discuss how the money went abroad,\u201d said Naqvi and warned that authorities could trace such flows if required. \u201cIf someone thinks it cannot be traced, it would only take picking up one or two people in Karachi to find everything,\u201d he warned. Naqvi also assured the business community of improved conditions, saying Pakistan offers strong returns on investment. \u201cThe profit Pakistan offers cannot be found anywhere else in the world,\u201d he said and assured them of providing a conducive business environment.\u201d He further said that proposals regarding visas for traders would soon be presented to Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif. The security czar said that efforts were underway to make the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) more business-friendly. \u201cWe will make FIA affairs business-friendly,\u201d he said, adding that the entire business community should not be penalised for the actions of a few. \u201cWe cannot punish the whole business community because of one or 2% of people,\u201d he added. Naqvi also raised concerns about money changers, saying they were often used for managing private funds. \u201cMoney changers are only kept to manage one\u2019s own money. No tourist comes and exchanges money through them,\u201d he said. \u201cWe have also held a meeting with the finance minister to ask what these money changers are doing,\u201d he said. The interior minister further disclosed that large transactions by major groups in Karachi had been detected and warned that there would be no leniency. He also expressed hope of improving Pakistan\u2019s global standing, stating: \u201cWe are trying to bring the Pakistani passport ranking from 99 to 50.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi has urged businessmen to bring back at least 30% of their wealth to Pakistan ahead of the federal budget 2026-27. \u201cThe…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":31866,"comment_status":"registered_only","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31863","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latest-news-updates"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31863","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=31863"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31863\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/31866"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=31863"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=31863"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=31863"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}