Finance Minister Ishaq Dar urged people not to listen to rumors about Pakistan defaulting. This comes amid renewed concerns over the health of the economy as foreign reserves run low, the local currency weakens and inflation stands at decades-high levels despite the resumption of an International Monetary Fund funding programme in August.

“Pakistan has never defaulted on its debt obligations. We will make the payments. The country has sufficient reserves of petroleum products, petrol and diesel in the country. There is no shortage,” said Dar while speaking to the media in Islamabad via video link on Saturday.

He said that the rumours were baseless while alluding that those peddling the narrative might have political motives.

Former premier Imran Khan, who is currently leading a nationwide protest against the incumbent government, has repeatedly raise the spectre of a soverign default.

Professor of Applied Economis at the Johns Hopkins University had tweeted last month that the country’s sovereign bonds had lost more than 60% of their value this year.

More telling was the assessmnet of the country’s default risk as measured by five-year credit-default swaps (CDS) — insurance contracts that protect an investor against a default. The CDS rose sharply earlier this week amid political turmoil and uncertainty about talks with the International Monetary Fund (IMF). According to research firm Arif Habib Limited, it was up to 75.5 per cent on Wednesday from 56.2pc a day ago.

The outlook led to questions during the Natioanl Assembly session on Friday, with Minister of State for Finance and Revenue Aisha Ghaus Pasha assuring lawmakers that the situation was brought under control by ‘tough decisions’ taken by the incumbent government and the revival of the IMF programme.

During his press conference today, Dar said that the current account deficit was at $316 million in September. It is expected to be under $400 million in October.

If this continues, the deficit would be around $5-6 billion for the year, instead of the $12 billion that was projected earlier.

Pakistan’s next big payment - $1 billion in international bonds - is due in December, and Dar said that payment would be met.