Staff Reporter Islamabad
Finance Minister Shaukat Tarin Thursday announced that trade with Afghanistan will be carried out in the Pakistani currency as Kabul is facing shortage of dollars.
The decision was taken during a meeting of the Senate Standing Committee on Finance chaired by Senator Talha Mehmood.
Tarin told the Senate committee that the government has decided to trade with Afghanistan in Pakistani currency, instead of dollars.
He maintained that Afghanistan is facing shortage of dollars as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank have seized its reserves after the Taliban’s takeover of the country. He maintained that they were monitoring the situation on a daily basis.
Speaking on the occasion, the finance minister said, “People could be sent from Pakistan to run various affairs in Afghanistan.”
Tarin termed food prices the biggest issue of Pakistan and said that the current account deficit has been increasing since April.
The finance minister told the senators that Pakistan received $450 million from the Asian Development for procurement of Covid-19 vaccines.
The finance minister revealed that Indian hackers had targeted the database of the Federal Board of Revenue a few days back.
Shaukat Tarin told the Senate Standing Committee on Finance that FBR’s system was also hacked by the Indians in 2019. The finance minister said that the FBR’s system is being updated.
