Finance Minister Miftah Ismail said on Tuesday that the budget deficit was Rs5,600 billion when the coalition government came into power, while the country’s budget deficit back in 2016 was Rs1,600 billion.

“Government’s debt stood at around Rs1,100 billion rupees in 2018 which is now over 2,500 billion,” the minister said while addressing a pre-budget business conference in Islamabad on Tuesday. During the last four years, the government took over $20 billion in loans.

Miftah said that Pakistan’s debt had increased along with an increase in inflation, adding that the government needed $41 million for the next 12 months.

The minister said that the previous government had given Rs1,100 billion in terms of subsidies in the energy sector.

The PTI-led government had agreed with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to increase levy and income tax on petroleum products and would not give subsidies, he continued.

He said that the government has a deficit of Rs1,600 billion in the energy sector, adding that the government had made losses of Rs200 billion in SNGPL.

The finance minister said that every year around two million people join the labour market in Pakistan and “you need six per cent growth to support the job market.”

He said that Pakistan has to repay loans to the tune of $21 billion by next year.

The previous government was in talks with the Russian authorities for buying wheat and gas from the country, the finance minister said. “The PTI-led government had no chance to buy Russian oil,” he added.

Govt has no plan to impose financial emergency

Earlier in a tweet, the finance minister had said that the government had no plan to impose a financial emergency as the country was out of economic crisis after the two increases in the prices of petroleum products.