“I’ve been hearing the same thing for three months, that Pakistan will default,” Dar said while addressing the Pakistan Stock Exchange.

“Why will Pakistan default, this isn’t the Pakistan of old,” he said, adding that the economy should not be the subject of speculation and politics.

The finance minister has been under increasing pressure as negotiations with IMF stay cold and pressure on Pakistan’s currency mounts.

“My endeavour has been to make sure that if we don’t give relief to the public, atleast we should not add more burden,”

Ishaq Dar came to Pakistan in September after a four-year exile in London. Hailed by his party as a ‘wizard’, he initially took a tough stand with claims of handling IMF and improving the rupee’s value. However, the claims have not come to fruition the way he thought.

Still, Dar thinks he can take the economy forward and complete the IMF program. He said that pakistan has a great future regardless of who was in power.

“The games and experiments carried out on the economy are not my fault, but we have to fix them,” he said.