ISLAMABAD, Jul 17 (APP): Advisor to the Finance Minister, Khurram Schehzad, on Thursday reaffirmed the government’s commitment to sustaining the momentum of recent economic reforms, aiming to ensure long-term economic resilience and build a foundation for a progressive, sustainable future.
In a video message received here, the Finance Minister’s aide said that due to economic reforms introduced by the incumbent government, the macro-economic indicators were showing resilience, adding that inflation was recorded at the lowest level of last 3 years as it went down from 23.4 per cent of the last year to 4.5 percent during the current fiscal year.
The food inflation during the fiscal year 2025 was recorded further decreased by 0.6 percent, which stood at 21 percent of the same period of the last year, he said adding that the core inflation was recorded at 9.6 percent, which was registered at 18.9 percent previous year.
Khurram Schehzad further informed that the per-capita income grew by 10 percent during the last fiscal year as it was recorded at $1,824.
Meanwhile, the rate of interest also decreased during the fiscal year 2025 and it was recorded at 11 percent against the 22 percent of the last fiscal year, he said adding that the government has introduced special tax relief measures in its current federal budget for salaried and corporate sectors.
He said that special allocation were made for the agriculture sector uplift in the current budget in order to promote and develop the local agriculture and livestock sectors in the country to enhance the farm income of small scale growers to alleviate poverty from the country .
Schehzad noted that a special focus was also paid on the promotion of digital financing, small and medium sector enterprises development and youth empowerment, adding that the government has also introduced tariff reforms for the development and promotion of local industrial sector and to get export led growth.
The Advisor said that special measures were taken to overcome the environmental challenges and agreement were signed with multilateral partners and agencies, which would provide climate financing.
The government under its reforms agenda has initiated the right sizing of the federal government, besides introducing energy reforms, privatization of loss making state owned enterprises and other fiscal reforms to achieve sustainable and inclusive growth.
Khurram Schehzad said that agriculture sector was the backbone of national economy and government has enhanced agriculture financing by 16 percent and private sector credit enhanced up to 38 percent that reached to Rs 710 billion.
Moreover, he said the government has also introduced measures to overcome the circular debt issues, the prices of electricity was reduced for household and industrial sectors.
Due to these corrective measures, the Federal Board of Revenue tax collection grew by 26 percent on year on year basis, adding that primary surplus was achieved, he added.
“Pakistan’s reform momentum is real and it’s just getting started,” he said adding that this economic scorecard reflects the groundwork for fiscal discipline, investment climate improvement, and structural transformation.