ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Senior Leader Asad Umer urged to reduce business costs and cautioned the Finance Ministry to refrain from deferring payments of refunds to cover the deficit. In a statement, the PTI leader expressed deep concern over the anomalous increase in the trade deficit and demanded the federal government to change the flawed and succumbed economic strategies. Addressing Finance Minister Ishaq Dar, he stated that “Pakistan has sunken into the quagmire of foreign debts and Dar’s financial wisdom is good for nothing.” He pressed on Dar to review the existing economic strategies of his government and stated that, “As a consequence of his failed policies the trade deficit for the first 11 months of this fiscal year has surged to a record new level of $30 billion.” He also added that “The trade deficit has increased $9 billion than last year. Lone beneficiaries of Ishaq Dar’s policies are global money lenders.” “Irony is that the exports have been obliterated but global money lenders are admiring the economic performance of this government,” he said. He advised the finance minister to, “Rely on local industries instead of expensive foreign loans which has incapacitated country’s economy.”