Finance Minister Miftah Ismail said on Saturday that the government will permit Pakistan’s textile sector to import cotton to meet its demand after an estimated 1.4 million acres of the area where the crop is cultivated in Sindh faced destruction due to floods.

In a press conference, he promised that the government would aid the textile sector by allowing the import of cotton so it could fulfill its needs.

He noted that date and sugarcane crops have also seen massive destruction while issues are being faced in transporting tomatoes and onions to major cities of Pakistan, which was in turn driving their prices upward.

“Half of the onion crop in Sindh also witnessed total destruction,” he said. “As an initial step, we have suspended duty and taxes on import of onions and tomatoes.”

According to the finance minister, import of onion from Afghanistan resulted in reduction of its price in many parts of the country.

“Sugar and ghee prices are also falling due to efforts of the current government,” he said. “We will control inflation in the next two months.”

His press conference comes as a follow up to former finance minister Shaukat Tarin who addressed reporters at the Karachi Press Club in which the latter urged the government to secure relief from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in view of floods and import cheap oil from Russia.

Responding to his remarks, Miftah said that people were suffering due to floods but the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) was involved in political point scoring.

Terming the appeal to buy oil from Russia baseless, Miftah added that it might not be compatible with refineries of Pakistan.

“Pakistan has never bought oil from Russia and PTI did not do it either during its rule,” he said, also blaming Tarin for trying to jeopardising the IMF deal at the last minute.

He underlined that PTI paid $25,000 per month to American lobbying firm to improve their relations between the political party and government of US.

Miftah also censured PTI for “violating the IMF deal in February to give amnesty to its friends.”

If PTI had cleared the no-confidence motion, it would have ended the subsidy and raised petrol prices in April 2022, Miftah said.

“Even the Finance Division was informed of this and PTI is just selling lies,” he said. “It is also justifying its conspiracy against IMF programme.”

Miftah, however, admitted that the economy was facing a renewed wave of inflation due to floods and prices of food items had soared.

This article was first published on the Business Recorder website.