Minister for Information and Broadcasting Chaudhry Fawad Hussain on Wednesday said that Prime Minister Imran Khan has announced the largest relief and welfare programme in the history of the country. In a statement, the minister said that commodity prices were on the rise all over the world. However if national wealth looted by former rulers is brought back, the prices of essential commodities will be halved. He said that the provision of interest free loans to 4 million deserving families for construction of houses and the announcement of making one member of the family skilled was a welcome step. The Prime Minister, he said in his address mentioned the economic situation of the country while informing the nation about the ground realities. Fawad said that inflation has increased all over the world, Pakistan was not isolated from this world. He said that today the cause of inflation were not the government policies, there were many reasons for it, including loans taken by previous governments and sharp rise in the world commodity prices. Chaudhry Fawad Hussain remarked that today the nation was facing economic difficulties due to loans taken by the previous governments. The Federal Minister for said that globally commodity prices have increased by 50% while in Pakistan their prices have increased by only 9 per cent. He said only Rupee has the not depreciated against the dollar but also the currencies of other developed countries have depreciated. He said that the Prime Minister in his address mentioned the coronavirus pandemic and apprised the nation of the steps being taken by the government to deal with the situation. The whole world has been suffering from economic hardships due to this pandemic and poor countries were more affected. He said that Pakistan’s efforts to deal with the pandemic were appreciated all over the world. “As a nation we are proud to have a government in power that has full understanding of the difficulties”. He said that despite the coronavirus, we have bumper crops today, Rs 1100 billion have been shifted to agriculture sector, large scale manufacturing has increased by 13%, construction sector has flourished, sales of tractors and motorcycles have increased to record level. He said today, urea fertilizer was available in Pakistan at cheaper in rates as compared with other countries of the region.