Finance Minister Ishaq Dar clarified on Wednesday that the government would not take over foreign exchange held by commercial banks, saying that his earlier statement on the country\u2019s reserves had been twisted by certain sections.
\nHis remarks come days after he said in an interview that Pakistan\u2019s foreign exchange reserves stand at $10 billion, a much higher figure than the central bank\u2019s $5.6bn reserves as of Dec 30, 2022, because \u201cdollars held by commercial banks also belonged to the country\u201d. This comment gave rise to fears that the government may confiscate dollars from private banks as had been done in 1998 when Dar was the finance minister.
\nHowever, Dar said today that his comment was \u201cgreatly misconstrued\u201d and \u201cnothing of the sort will happen\u201d.
\nIn a press conference alongside Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and other federal cabinet members, Dar elaborated that prior to 1999, every cent that came into the country was deposited with the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) and private banks were not allowed to keep dollars.
\n\u201cIn February 1999, when I was the finance minister, we devised a system whereby a substantial amount [of dollars] remain with [private] banks. It was on June 30, 1999 that reserves were broken down into three columns \u2014 those with the SBP, commercial banks and total.
\n\u201cWhenever Pakistan\u2019s reserves are quoted anywhere in the world \u2014 a survey or a document \u2014 the [total figure] is quoted and then a breakdown is given. I gave a breakdown too,\u201d he added.
\nThe minister said \u201csome people\u201d had worsened the country\u2019s situation to the extent that it had slipped from being the 24th largest economy in 2016 to the 47th.
\n\u201cEven now, they cannot tolerate any good development. They gave such a twist [to my statement],\u201d he said, adding that while the federal cabinet was busy working for Pakistan under PM Shehbaz\u2019s guidance, such people were spreading rumours that the government would take dollars from commercial banks.
\n\u201cNothing of that sort will happen. Everything is all worked out \u2026 and in order. Nothing to worry about,\u201d he assured, urging those \u201cspreading the rumours\u201d to play a positive national role.
\nDar also tweeted about the reserves later, saying national foreign exchange reserves always include forex held with SBP and commercial banks.
\n\u201cRecently I quoted the forex reserves figure based on this principle. Some vested elements who ruined this country\u2019s economy in the past, gave it a deliberate twist and started a campaign as if govt was considering access to foreign exchange held with commercial banks which indeed is the property of the citizens.
\n\u201cIt is categorically denied and clarified that there is no such move under consideration of the govt,\u201d he emphasised.
\nThe finance minister said the country\u2019s foreign exchange reserves would improve in the near future.
\nIMF review
\nPakistan\u2019s foreign exchange reserves have depleted to an eight-year low of $5.6bn as of Dec 30, 2022, according to the central bank. This amounts to three weeks of imports.
\nThe rapid decline has left no space for the government to pay back its foreign debts without borrowing more from friendly countries. The ninth review of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) programme, which would release $1.18bn, has been delayed for months because of the PML-N-led government\u2019s unwillingness to accept certain conditions placed before it by the Fund.
\nDar addressed the delay in today\u2019s press conference, saying that it was related to revenue collection. The super tax imposed by the government in June last year had been invalidated by a high court while the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) had failed to meet its target in December, the finance minister noted.
\nHe said that his team informed the IMF that Pakistan could recover the amount in a staggered manner after the Supreme Court ruled on the super tax. \u201cWe are not changing the fiscal budget target and we will achieve it,\u201d he asserted.
\nHowever, the IMF wanted the government to take fiscal measures and cut back some subsidies, Dar added. \u201cWe have identified some fiscal measures but there will be no burden on the common man. They will be very targeted and categorical,\u201d he assured.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Finance Minister Ishaq Dar clarified on Wednesday that the government would not take over foreign exchange held by commercial banks, saying that his earlier statement…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4194,"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":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4193","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4193","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=4193"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4193\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4194"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4193"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4193"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4193"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}