“We will control inflation. We will bring interest rates down.”
By Staff Reporter
ISLAMABAD: Senator Ishaq Dar has taken oath as the country’s new finance minister a day after he was sworn in as a member of the upper house of the parliament.
President Arif Ali on Wednesday administered the oath of office to the veteran politician during a brief ceremony in the capital Islamabad.
Dar, after taking the charge of finance ministry said will work to check runaway inflation and will also trim high interest rates.
“We will control inflation,” Dar told reporters in televised comments. “We will bring interest rates down.”
Dar, aged 72, has been given the portfolio. It also comes at a time when Pakistan is recovering from devastating floods that killed more than 1,600 people and destroyed homes, crops, roads and rail networks. The disaster could cut economic growth to below 3 percent, from 5 percent estimated for fiscal 2022-23.
Dar was nominated by PML-N supremo Nawaz Sharif and Prime Minister Shehbaz as the Finance Minister during a meeting held in London on Sunday and returned to take charge of the finance portfolio, which he has previously held on three occasions.
Dar, a chartered accountant by profession, was given the position after his predecessor Miftah Ismail stepped down.
Ismail was the fifth finance minister in about four years. During his six-month stint , Ismail managed to secure a $1.17bn bailout package from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) as Pakistan battles an economic crisis.
The tranche was likely to be increased after Pakistan sought help to remedy economic losses of an estimated $30 billion caused by the unprecedented floods.
Dar said the rupee, weakened more than 30 percent against the U.S. dollar so far this year, is undervalued. “Our currency right now is not at the place where it should be, it is undervalued.”
“I hope the speculators will stop. I think they have already got it and we are seeing the rupee rising,” he added. “No one will be allowed to play with the Pakistani currency.”
The rupee has been gaining firmly ahead of his appointment.
Dar blamed PTI”s pervious government for current economic crisis. “We can’t reverse the destruction of the approximately four years of PTI’s tenure in the few months which the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) has remaining.”
The minister said that the country faced “deep challenges” but the government would try its best to overcome them.
He also said Pakistan’s inflationary woes were mainly due to the country’s burgeoning imports. “We believe in a market-based economy but no one will be allowed to play games with Pakistan’s currency.”
Analysts say Dar’s key mandate is to halt inflation that mainly stems from his predecessor’s unpopular decisions to stick to preconditions set by the IMF, including rolling back subsidies made by Imran Khan’s government.
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