Islamabad: Warning against \u2018actions\u2019 that impede hard-earned economic growth, Federal Minister for Finance and Revenue, Senator Muhammad Aurangzeb, on Tuesday, hinted at a further drop in consumer price inflation and the central bank\u2019s policy rates in the coming months.
\n\u201cThe government has strived hard to bring about economic stability,\u201d said the finance minister asserting the the efforts of the ruling coalition have started paying off.
\nAnnouncing that the much-resisted structural economic reforms were finally underway, the finance czar foreceast the inflationary pressures to ease further and central bank\u2019s hawkish monetary outlook to continue. \u201cInflation has dropped to single digits,\u201d said Aurangzeb expecting it to hit new lows.
\nConsumer Price Index- (CPI) based inflation fell to 6.9% year-on-year in September 2024, the lowest since January 2021, down from 9.6% in August, driven by the high base effect, easing commodity and energy markets, and a stable currency, according to the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS).
\nLast month, the SBP\u2019s Monetary Policy Committee slashed the key policy rate by 200bps to 17.5% from 19.5%, citing a steep fall in both headline and core inflation over the past two months.
\nExpressing his condolences over the loss of Chinese engineers working in Pakistan, Aurangzeb said that no amount of money could be placed on the loss of life.
\n\u201cChinese nationals targeted in Karachi were the officials of independent power producers (IPPs) engaged in talks with the government of Pakistan to revise the agreements.\u201d
\nDeceased engineers were collaborating with Minister for Energy (Power Division) Awais Leghari on IPPs projects, he said adding that talks were ongoing with IPPs to provide further relief to the public.
\nAt least three persons including two Chinese nationals were killed in an explosion near Jinnah International Airport on October 6, while another Chinese national and over a dozen others were injured.
\nHighlighting their negative impacts on growth and stability, Aurangzeb said that strikes and agitation were taking a toll on the economy and bleeding the national exchequer.
\n\u201cSuch actions cost the country around Rs190 billion per day, severely affecting economic growth\u201d He urged those calling for strikes to consider their repercussions and instead engage in negotiations to resolve their issues.
\nHe urged those calling for strikes to consider their repercussions and instead engage in negotiations to resolve their issues.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Islamabad: Warning against \u2018actions\u2019 that impede hard-earned economic growth, Federal Minister for Finance and Revenue, Senator Muhammad Aurangzeb, on Tuesday, hinted at a further drop in consumer price inflation and the central bank\u2019s policy rates in the coming months. \u201cThe government has strived hard to bring about economic stability,\u201d said the finance minister asserting the …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":67989,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-71306","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71306","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=71306"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71306\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":71325,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71306\/revisions\/71325"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/67989"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71306"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71306"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71306"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}