ISLAMABAD: Beleaguered by terrorism and security challenges, Pakistan is still managing to focus on growth and job creation, Finance Minister Senator Mohammad Ishaq Dar told CNBC international on Tuesday. “Pakistan’s economy has shown great resilience against the global trend of developing countries and the emerging markets which have seen negative declines,” Ishaq Dar told the channel. The minister is currently leading a Pakistani delegation at the annual meeting of Asian Development Bank (ADB) in Frankfurt, Germany. “We have shown seven-year high growth in the last fiscal year, and in the current year we hope to cross five percent. We are aiming at a growth rate of seven percent in the next two fiscal years so things are moving quite nicely,” he said, while speaking on the sidelines of the annual meeting of the Asia Development Bank in Frankfurt, the CNBC reported. “But we had serious challenges apart from macro-economic stability which is now in order. Pakistan took a bold decision to have an all-out war against terrorism and it is a fairly costly item,” he said. Dar told CNBC that Pakistan was facing enormous challenges after the 2013 general elections. “The security challenges that Pakistan were facing at the time of the last general election in 2013 were what I call the three major ‘E’s’: extremism, economy and energy,” he said. “We took all the three E’s on and we have had great successes so far in the macro-economic stability and we are now working on the growth trajectory, job creation and things are moving on fine.” Pertinent to mention that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) had given Pakistan a $6.6 billion loan in 2013 under a three-year programme designed to help stabilise the economy. It has, as of March this year, received around $5.5 billion of that aid. Pakistan’s gross domestic product (GDP) is expected to have grown 4.5 percent this fiscal year, as noted by the IMF. In March, following a review of Pakistan’s economic performance in light of the aid programme, the IMF concluded that the country was reaching fiscal targets and that economic activity had “continued to gradually gain strength”, Mitsuhiro Furusawa, the Fund’s deputy managing director said in the report. However, Furusawa added, “Building on these gains, further progress, including in the area of structural reforms, is needed to generate strong and inclusive growth and make the economy more resilient and competitive.” Meanwhile, Finance Minister Ishaq Dar Tuesday emphasised that Europe and Asia must review their existing arrangements and open up markets by cutting down tariff and non-tariff barriers. According to a statement issued by Finance Ministry, the minister highlighted the importance of open market strategy while participating in a seminar on ‘Asia-Europe Economic Cooperation: Fostering Greater Trade and Investment’, on the sidelines of ADB Board of Governor meeting. On infrastructure financing, Dar said the multilateral development banks must come up with new instruments including bonds to bridge the gaps. He also dwelled upon intellectual property rights and expanding e-commerce. He extensively spoke on issues relating to the slowdown in world trade growth impacting Asia- Europe economic cooperation; scaling up of economic cooperation with European countries and its diversification for mutual benefit. Other panelists AIIB President Liqun Jin, KFW CEO Ulrich Schroder, JICA Vice President Kae Yanagisawa, ADB Vice President Stephen P Groff and Emerging Markets Managing Director Toby Fildes moderated the seminary.