Pakistan's past and present Finance Ministers disagree on whether the national economy is still in the red ahead of its ninth review by the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
While current Finance Minister Ishaq Dar feels the country's performance is up to the mark and ready for the IMF review, his predecessor Miftah Ismail believes that the default risk would not subside unless the IMF and other multilateral lenders came to the table.
The two expressed their views in separate interviews with private media broadcasts on Tuesday, reported The Dawn.
During his interview, Dar said that the IMF looks at the overall direction of a particular quarter. This includes the fulfilment of conditionalities and structural bonds, according to Samaa TV.
According to Dar, the IMF wants the data for the whole fiscal year and Pakistan is working towards providing the same.
The IMF is also asking how Pakistan will procure funds for flood rehabilitation, said Dar. He said it was unfair as the country is yet to prepare its financial plan and would not be able to provide a realistic picture at present.
To a question on whether the ninth and tenth reviews would be complete by January, Dar said the government was preparing for that and "we have to complete this task in the next few days", reported The DAWN.
Former Finance Minister Miftah Ismail while appearing on Geo News, said the IMF is the lender of last resort and that lenders like the World Bank and Asian Development Bank agreed to provide loans to Pakistan once the IMF came into the picture.
"But if that connection with the IMF breaks or a programme is suspended, then other loans stop as well and after that, you can't save Pakistan," he told journalist Shahzeb Khanzada, according to The Dawn.
Ismail, earlier told Dawn, that Pakistan's default risk has climbed up again and reached dangerous levels and there is no room left for error. He noted that concrete measures that reassure markets and lenders are urgently needed, and said the default risk won't vanish even after the December bonds are paid off.
In an article in The Dawn, he said the current account deficit has been the basic problem with Pakistan's economy.
He said there was a time in the 1950s when Pakistan's exports were more than South Korea's and a time in the 1990s "when our exports were more than Vietnam's".
"Today, South Korea's and Vietnam's exports are 18 times and six times more than Pakistan's respectively. So the story of our relative decline is both old and consistent. However, it has taken on a sharper edge in this century.
"Referring to the debate on rupee-dollar parity, he said it is best left to the market to determine the exchange rate.
( With inputs from ANI )
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