Daily Times

Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb said the government seeks to leverage structural reforms and regional connectivity to ensure sustainable economic expansion.

In an interview with Asharq and Bloomberg on the sidelines of the AlUla Conference for Emerging Market Economies 2025, the finance minister highlighted Pakistan’s economic outlook, ongoing structural reforms, and the country’s commitment to regional and global economic cooperation.

Aurangzeb shared that in the last 12-14 months, Pakistan’s macroeconomic indicators have improved including a decrease in inflation, policy rate, achieving currency stability, and return of institutional flows.

“We are using this macroeconomic stability to execute structural reforms, which are in the context of taxation, energy, privatization of SOEs and reducing the federal government’s size to focus on our public finances.”

“As we go forward and talk about the growth, we are now very focused that this time this should be sustainable growth. For that we need to have prudent fiscal management,” said Aurangzeb.

The finance minister shared that the government does not want to repeat the twin deficits experienced in the past.

“Both the current accounts are in a surplus, we have a primary surplus at this point. We want to consolidate and use this and the available fiscal space to prioritize expenditures, which can then help the growth trajectory as we move forward,” he added.

During the interview, Aurangzeb said that both investment and trade “are going to be important engines of growth”.

On regional connectivity, the finance minister said the importance of the regional corridors and the regional trade connectivity would increase in the coming years.

“In the case of Pakistan, China has been a big corridor for us, with respect to the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Going forward, I see GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council),” he said

The finance minister said there is a “huge export potential” for Pakistan in these markets.

“We want to double our exports in the next three to five years,” he added.