00:00 The agreement that has been reached today, obviously there is a debt issue.
00:04 Obviously, the economy of Pakistan is not running well.
00:08 A fundamental point that we need to understand is that those countries go to the IMF.
00:14 Those countries whose internal affairs are not running well at the economic level,
00:20 need reforms.
00:21 The infrastructure in the country, especially the way you run the economy,
00:27 how you run your state and enterprises,
00:30 the fiscal discipline that you have to enforce in Pakistan,
00:33 what are the priorities of the government in that regard.
00:36 If it is not followed, if the situation is bad, if your current account deficit,
00:40 trade deficit, etc. all the losses are increasing,
00:44 then the IMF needs such a package.
00:47 Doctor, thank you very much for giving time.
00:49 First of all, give us an overview.
00:52 Obviously, the government has been very successful in this regard.
00:56 And I think it is successful.
00:58 Obviously, until we have the IMF's blessing,
01:01 we will get money from other international donors.
01:04 We have to present a good picture in front of the world,
01:09 we have to create an impression that,
01:11 "Oh God, reforms are being made in Pakistan."
01:13 And we are moving forward on the economic model of Pakistan,
01:16 which needs reforms.
01:20 So, this is a positive signal.
01:23 What was your first reaction when this announcement came to us?
01:27 Yes, Mr. Khawar, if we look at the history,
01:32 we became a member of the IMF in 1950.
01:36 And we started taking such loans from 1958.
01:41 The announcement that has been made today,
01:44 the staff level estimate that has been made,
01:47 why is it being called successful?
01:50 One of the big reasons for this is that in the last 73 years,
01:55 we have signed 24 programs with the IMF.
01:58 And you can imagine that we failed in 22 out of 24 programs.
02:03 One program was such that we got a dozen waivers.
02:08 I think it was the 2016 program.
02:11 And we completed that program after taking the waivers.
02:15 I remember one program, it was a program during Musharraf's time,
02:19 when the government refused to take the last two waivers.
02:23 They said, "We don't need your waivers."
02:27 So, you can imagine that in a total of 74 programs,
02:30 we were unsuccessful in 22 of them.
02:33 And two of the successes were from the Hazar program,
02:39 which you are talking about today.
02:42 So, the success is real.
02:44 We have done this only once in 76 years.
02:47 Now, we will do it again.
02:49 Yes, Dr. Sir, my next question to you is this.
02:52 I have with me Mr. Chaudhary Ghulam Sain and Mr. Hassan Ayub.
02:55 They will also ask you this question.
02:57 Obviously, the $700 million that we are getting,
03:01 the Waqf, we have to get the next tranche.
03:04 We had to get three tranches for this.
03:07 When the new government comes,
03:10 obviously, the elections have already been held on 8th February.
03:13 So, how are you looking at this time span?
03:16 Especially, what I was seeing in Ilamia,
03:18 the privatization that we have to reform in state-owned enterprises,
03:23 maybe the decisions have been expected to be taken.
03:27 What is your take on this?
03:30 I think that there will be no privatization during the Nigrahan government.
03:37 Privatization is a long process.
03:40 The PIA is being prioritized.
03:43 Maybe, the advisors are being found or appointed for the PIA.
03:48 And the PIA has been given a full-time priority
03:51 as to how it has to be handled in terms of privatization.
03:54 A very big problem is that the PIA's assets are worth about Rs. 100 crores.
04:00 And the loans that are being paid to it are worth Rs. 750 crores.
04:04 So, privatizing such an entity that has only assets worth Rs. 100 crores
04:09 and paying liabilities of Rs. 750 crores for it,
04:12 won't be an easy task.
04:15 The budget that was announced in June,
04:18 if you look at it, the proceeds from privatization,
04:22 how much money will be generated from privatization,
04:25 that is also about Rs. 10-12 billion.
04:30 This means that the government had no plan to be able to privatize anything in the budget.
04:34 And the Nigrahan government is trying.
04:37 But I don't think that they will be able to privatize anything before February.
04:45 Hassan Ayub is asking you a question.
04:47 Dr. Sahib, the former advisor, Mohammad Nawaz Sharif,
04:50 he repeated the Chamber of Commerce and said that
04:53 "We were not ready to come to the government in 2022.
04:57 But we had to come to the government because we had to save the country from default."
05:03 Is what he is saying true?
05:08 Look, the work that was done at the end of the PDI government,
05:15 when the PDM government was coming,
05:18 you think about Pakistan,
05:21 the highest budget loss in the history of finance,
05:26 it reached around Rs. 7500-8000.
05:30 That was being received by the PDM government.
05:34 The second was the highest commercial loss in the history of Pakistan,
05:40 it reached around 40-45 billion dollars.
05:43 These are the two things that the PDM government received in inheritance.
05:47 Now, it should have been that the PDM government,
05:50 the financial pit that it had fallen into,
05:53 it should have stopped digging further.
05:56 This did not happen.
05:58 They definitely had bad conditions,
06:01 but they made those conditions worse.
06:05 More negative things came up,
06:08 which I mentioned, that the pit,
06:11 they say that if you are in a pit, stop digging.
06:14 If you have fallen into a pit, stop digging.
06:17 That work could not be done.
06:20 And especially two things that came up,
06:23 that 16-month PDM government,
06:26 there was inflation, which was the highest in the history of Pakistan,
06:33 we saw that inflation reached 50% in terms of food.
06:39 That is, you can imagine that some food items were such
06:42 that their price increased by 50% in a year.
06:48 And the second was the loss of dollars,
06:53 which you are talking about the default,
06:56 it has been getting worse.
06:59 And if you remember in November,
07:02 at the end of September, the new Minister of Finance,
07:05 Mr. Itaq Dar,
07:07 he had some 7-8 months with IMF,
07:11 so the negotiations were delayed.
07:14 And as a result of that, in those 8 months,
07:17 Pakistan suffered a loss of $ 8 billion.
07:20 Our remittances of $ 4 billion fell,
07:24 and exports of $ 4 billion fell.
07:27 So the situation was bad when the PDM government came,
07:30 but they made it worse.
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