Kya Mulk Mein Mazeed Mehengai Honay Wali Hai ?
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00:00 Pakistan has completed all 26 missions. However, Pakistan has not yet completed the sidelines of the negotiations.
00:07 Pakistan will also initiate negotiations to obtain a program of at least $8 billion over three years.
00:14 The source also claims that Pakistan will not be able to meet the standards of the IMF in the coming months.
00:21 Pakistan has not yet completed all 26 missions. However, Pakistan has not yet completed the sidelines of the negotiations.
00:28 Pakistan will initiate negotiations to obtain a program of at least $8 billion over three years.
00:35 The source also claims that Pakistan is ready to sign a long-term program with the IMF. However, Pakistan is trying to take a long-term program.
00:44 Dr. Sir, if we look at the challenges, the exchange rates will increase after the IMF program.
00:50 However, it is a big challenge to pay off the loss of 50% of the currency in the last two years.
00:56 Now, the Finance Minister is going to meet the IMF team as well.
01:01 What do you think will be their priority?
01:05 Bismillahir Rahmanir Rahim.
01:06 Meher, this is a very sobering moment for Pakistan.
01:10 The country has to decide after 24 years that it should go to the IMF.
01:16 Countries should use the IMF sparingly in the world.
01:19 When you come into a balance of payments crisis due to internal or external circumstances, you should go to the IMF.
01:27 We have used the IMF as a rescue mission and have left 21 programs incomplete.
01:33 I have put this in front of you to give you an introspection.
01:36 Why are you going to the IMF? What is your purpose of going to the IMF?
01:40 Today, it is absolutely correct that you cannot save $25 billion if you are not in the IMF umbrella.
01:47 Your immediate task is to complete the stand-by arrangement.
01:52 It is true that there are largely no plans by December.
01:57 But this is a peripheral discussion.
01:59 I hope that we will get the money, which is equivalent to $1.2 billion.
02:04 There will be a lot of discussion.
02:06 When I look at the numbers in detail, I know that the next 8-10 PhDs will be doing the same work in Pakistan for 24 hours.
02:14 We are not doing this work with that fine detail.
02:17 I can see that when they talk about the targets for the year, they will say that the provincial surplus will not come.
02:23 In the last two months of your FPR, the revenue was 33% less than the target in February.
02:29 Similarly, you have taken a lot of profits from the state bank in the first 6 months.
02:34 We were taking a total profit of 1113 billion.
02:37 We took 972 billion from that in the first 6 months.
02:41 That's why the numbers of the first 6 months look better.
02:44 I have put these things in front of you because they are very technical things.
02:48 IMF is a quantitative technical modeling program.
02:51 Don't take the next program so easily.
02:54 Today, I have tried to frame the program of Pakistan.
02:57 There is an article on the front page of the news, which I have written,
03:01 "Should Pakistan see that is Pakistan prepared with a program that it takes to a bank, which is agreeable to fund that program?"
03:11 This is how you should approach the IMF.
03:13 Otherwise, if you approach the IMF with a run-of-the-mill story,
03:16 then you will be standing there and taking money, running the program on and off.
03:21 What unique experience does Mohammad Aurangzeb bring to the table in this respect?
03:27 Because there is criticism that if an expert economist was appointed,
03:32 it would have been better.
03:33 As you know, Manmohan Singh was appointed in the 90s.
03:36 We have already experienced a banker.
03:38 It failed, unfortunately.
03:40 But of course, he does seem to have competence.
03:42 That's what's said.
03:43 But do you think he has the necessary skill set with what you are talking about?
03:48 I read Manmohan's speech in 1991 many times.
03:52 It was a very good breakaway from the past.
03:55 So, what needs to be done now is the same.
03:57 First, break away in public finance, reform the expenditure.
04:01 You have put forward some tax reform.
04:03 Now, plan this reform.
04:04 What do you want in expenditure?
04:06 It cannot be cut, but there can be a shortage of the rate of its increase.
04:10 I still think that many times it is said that the committee will be made on expenditure or austerity.
04:15 That is not the case.
04:16 You have to see how you will reduce the rate of your pensions.
04:20 So, first, you have to create a lot of clarity at your end.
04:23 The future FM of the private sector can obviously tell that
04:28 endogenous growth is growth from within.
04:31 How can the private sector be done while increasing the production capacity?
04:37 If the real sector grows, then many of your problems will become easier.
04:41 Dr. Sharma, we will meet the IMF team right at hand immediately.
04:46 A standby program is wrapping up.
04:49 We need a long-term program.
04:52 We are waiting for that.
04:53 Do you see that conversation happening on this trip when the IMF will be here?
04:58 If I go back to 2013, the IMF team was in Pakistan.
05:05 PM LN's government was there.
05:07 They came to do article 4.
05:09 At that time, I told the Minister of Treasury that we should engage with the IMF in a new program immediately.
05:14 Within a month, we took Pakistan to the IMF program.
05:17 This is the only program.
05:18 Go and learn how we completed that program after 20 failures.
05:25 What was his team?
05:26 What was his mindset?
05:28 Now, we will have to go much further than that mindset because the situation has become more serious.
05:33 You are right.
05:35 We will have to talk about this from now.
05:37 For that, you will have to keep the contours of the next budget in front of you.
05:41 Mehar, this will become the bridge of going into the new program.
05:44 Your next budget contours will define your next 5 years in government.
05:48 If the reformist budget is implemented, expenditure, budgeting, FPR reform is seen,
05:54 tax to GDP ratio is seen to change,
05:57 investment, private sector and public sector is seen to be built,
06:02 then you will understand that this will be a successful transition into a new kind of set up.
06:07 If we stand there, then you will be stuck in a situation.
06:10 But Dr. Sir, on a last note, we are depending a lot on SIFC.
06:15 In what perspective are you looking at it?
06:18 Will the finance ministry become redundant or is it all working together?
06:22 Do you have to advise SIFC?
06:24 IMF has its own set of ideas.
06:31 Sir, Mehar, I have a sentence about Pakistan.
06:34 People talk a lot about implementation.
06:36 Implementation is a matter of good coordination.
06:38 You have in SIFC, all the people, all the establishments, political, civil and provinces.
06:46 Use it for coordination and to make those decisions.
06:50 Because those decisions will not be challenged in NAB, so it is easy for you.
06:54 And where work is not happening, to push through it.
06:56 We used to do this kind of work in our economic reform unit.
06:59 This will be a very useful unit.
07:01 The prior actions, quantitative targets, structural benchmarks, you will make them yourself.
07:06 I will keep saying this again and again, the program is of Pakistan.
07:09 The program has to be defined by Pakistan.
07:11 If we go in the straight jacket of IMF, then again we will come in an austerity based program.
07:15 Thank you very much.
07:16 SIFC will have a very good role.
07:18 Dr. Khakan Najeeb was with us. You heard Dr. Bose.