Pakistan crossed many “red lines” to the international monetary funding program and compromised his “dignity” to bridge the external financing gap, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said on Tuesday while telling his first year’s fight to pull the country back from the edge of default.

The premiere, who celebrated his government’s one year of power in an unusual way by holding an open cabinet meeting, told the story of the last year of getting foreign loans and meeting the IMF requirements for the purpose of avoiding the sovereign breach.

We crossed many red lines in the IMF and everyone worked really hard to meet the IMF conditions, the prime minister said at his address to the special federal cabinet meeting, which was also attended by people from different walks of life and journalists.

The Prime Minister talked about the IMF conditions at a time when the fund team is already in the city to review the country’s performance before approving the second loan tranche of $ 1 billion.

It was the second cabinet meeting in the last 11 years that was open to the media. Earlier in January 2014, former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif held a cabinet meeting in the presence of the media where the then Finance Minister Ishaq Dar had given a presentation on the financial state.

For the extended fund facility (EFF), the IMF demanded to arrange $ 5 billion to fill the external financing gap, and money is not growing on trees or could be extracted so that I and the head of the army staff went to friendly countries, the prime minister said.

He told yet another conversation between the United Arab Emirates herself and him about the rollover of the mature debt of $ 2 billion. Debt matured in January, which UAE extended for one more year.

During his last visit, the UAE Linal Linal said the $ 2 billion debt was due and what was the plan, the prime minister said. Then, after our conversion, the UAE hersestor said the debt was rolled over, Sharif said.

“When we go to pray for money, we compromise our dignity,” Shearif said.

Back in 2018, the then Minister of Commerce Abdul Razak Dawood had told a similar situation when former Prime Minister Imran Khan went to Saudi Arabia to apply for more loans. He had secured the package of $ 6 billion. Dawood had described the journey as “terrible”.

In the last year, 20 Onshore and 40 offshore licenses for oil and gas exploration have been issued, and these explorations would help pay the foreign debt of $ 130 billion, Vice Prime Minister Ishaq Dar said.

Saudi -Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Azerbaijan and Kuwait have planned to invest cumulatively $ 27 billion, and the government is working to offer bankable projects, Ishaq said.

Planning Minister Ahsan Iqbal revealed that Pakistan had defaulted internally in April 2022, when the Ministry of Finance had refused to release the development budget for the April-June quarter in this financial year. It had happened for the first time that no development budget was released in a quarter, he added.

In his speech, the Prime Minister said that over the past year it was a matter of satisfaction that neither a single case of corruption had emerged or a false single claim in this regard was leveled by the opposition.

However, his government is now dealing with a study against 37 allegedly corrupt customs officials who have been appointed by a Premier Intelligence Agency as part of a 78-person smuggling network.

The prime minister said they should work hard to give relief to unhappy and economically weaker segments of society with all kinds of help and compassion, especially in the Holy Month Ramazan.

Sharif criticized the bureaucracy and said many of them do not work and fine lame excuses.

The prime minister said the government would distribute an RS20 billion Ramzan package in favor of four million deserved families through a digital wallet system. Each family would get RS5,000 each, so that the new system would close doors on all kinds of accusations of financial management that had poorly destroyed the function of units such as Utility Stores Corporation, shehbaz Sharif said.

The premiere said that with the hard work, the government managed to achieve the financial reversal and rule the country out of the economic alleys. The prime minister said all the macroeconomic indicators were on a high scale and asked members to work hard with commitment and commitment as this was the prerequisites for making Pakistan a billion dollar economy by 2035.

Sharif emphasized the need to connect the RS850 billion. He expressed the optimism that Pakistan, with a collective effort, would arise stronger and emphasized on the development of a culture of forgiveness, love and tolerance in society.

Deputy Prime Minister said Pakistan’s diplomatic insulation was over and the country has now become a non-permanent member of UNSC for the year 2025-26, adding after a 27-year-old hole, multilateral international conferences such as SCO and Girls Education were held in Pakistan.

Financial stabilization

Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb gave an overview of the economy and said that Pakistan Stock Exchange had witnessed a 71% increase, while the profits in current account were the highest in the last 20 years. He estimated that the plans for the rightsization of 43 ministries and their 400 affiliated departments were on foot, while pension reforms and agricultural tax were introduced for the first time.

The minister said the FBR income increased 26%. The other major steps were the introduction of a faceless assessment system that saw revenue with 16% in the shortest time, he added.

Aurangzeb said all the international monetary institutions had hailed the financial results of the current government in Pakistan.

The Ministry of Finance addressed the issue of growing pension obligations and the direct contributing pension scheme was notified last July. The pension fund is also set up and several pensions ended, he added.

Aurangzeb said the federal government for the first time bought RS1 trillion debt to ease the repayment pressure. He said the first green sukuk will soon be issued on the PSX and Panda bonds will be floated by the end of this calendar year in the Chinese market to diversify financing sources and reduce costs.

The Ministry of Finance signed the national financial sport, established a tax policy office and reactivated the national tax council, Aurangzeb said.

Power situation

Minister of Power Awais Ahmed Laghari briefed the cabinet of reforms of the electricity sector and said these efforts had resulted in the reduction of RS151 billion industrial cross -sub -subsidies. Until February of this year, the electricity price was per year. Unit Reduced by RS4.96, which benefits consumers and industry boats required the Minister of Power.

Laghari also said that the contracts from 14 independent power producers have been reviewed and that five agreements of inefficient IPPs have been terminated and agreements of eight back plants had been reached. These steps resulted in RS1.33 trillion life savings, he added.

The Federal Minister of Information Technology, Shaza Fatima Khawaja, also presented a report on the execution of her ministry saying that 15 million new broadband subscribers were added while the telecommunications sector contributed RS341 billion to the national economy.

When he spoke on the occasion, Defense Minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif said the last year of the government was like a journey to rise from the ashes. He said that an opposition party that had had the power of the past had policies that did not sync with national interests. The same party was out to create chaos in the country and invite foreigners to interfere in the country’s internal affairs, he added.