Dar expects Saudi Arabia, China to beef up forex reserves by Jan-end
Saudi Arabia and China were set to beef up Pakistan’s foreign exchange reserves much before the close of this month, Finance Minister Ishaq Dar said on Wednesday and announced that the government would be shortly imposing flood levy on the affluent and a significant gain tax on banks’ foreign exchange earnings to ramp up revenue. “Our foreign exchange reserves by end-June would be much better than you can think,” Mr Dar said while speaking at a joint news conference with five other PML-N ministers. He said the International Monetary Fund (IMF) programme would be completed at all costs, China and Saudi Arabi would enhance their support, government-to-government (G2G) disinvestments would be completed, and the current account deficit would be about $3 billion less than earlier projections. The presser had been called in response to a “white paper” launched a day earlier by the opposition Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI), suggesting that Pakistan was on the verge of anarchy because of hyperinflation and unemployment.