FRIENDLY countries, especially Saudi Arabia, the UAE and China, have always come to the rescue of Pakistan in difficult economic situations.
At a time when fears of default are being expressed by the economic experts, Minister for Finance Ishaq Dar addressing a news conference on Wednesday said both Beijing and Riyadh are set to beef up the country’s foreign exchange reserves before the close of this month.
The people of Pakistan will always remain indebted to the timely support from the friendly countries but the question is for how long this process of rushing to friends for bailout packages in time of needs will continue.
When will we mend our ways and stand on our feet? There is a need of serious course correction otherwise a time will come when our friends will also abstain from extending a helping hand.
In a rejoinder to the white paper of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf against the PDM government, Ishaq Dar compared, in the presser, the performance of previous government of PML-N with that of the PTI.
The people have no interest whatsoever in the figures presented by both the parties. What is really disturbing and hurting them is the prices of essential commodities.
Hence, instead of spending energies on point scoring better sense should prevail in our political ranks to take the country in the right direction.
Certainly these are challenging times but the coalition government must demonstrate through their conduct that they are doing whatever is possible to fix the problems.
The support from friendly countries will save us from immediate default but what about the external liabilities that the country has to meet during the next six months to one year.
We have no option but to take tough decisions to revive the IMF program as well as focus on increasing the inflows of dollars through exports and remittances besides cutting down the imports.
Political stability is a must to entice foreign investors to come to Pakistan and invest in different sectors. How this stability is achieved, the decision rests with the political leadership.
