Business | Economy

Pakistan's finance minister must fix tattered economy

Incumbent faces trade and budget deficits along with rising oil prices.

  • Reuters
  • Published: 00:30 March 17, 2008
  • Gulf News

Islamabad: Whoever gets the finance minister's in Pakistan's new government will have to deal with widening budget and trade deficits in an economy pressured by rising international oil prices and chronic shortages of energy and staples.

The Pakistan People's Party (PPP) of assassinated former prime minister Benazir Bhutto will lead the incoming government. Its main partner is the the Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) of Nawaz Sharif.

A Sharif party official said if the party got the finance portfolio, it wanted the post to go to Ishaq Dar, who served as commerce minister and finance minister in one of Sharif's governments in the 1990s. If the post came to the PPP then another former finance minister, Naveed Qamar, was expected to be the party's choice.

Analysts were generally favourable about both the possible candidates, but some said Dar, an accountant and former businessman, had more experience.

"Ishaq Dar was a very good finance minister. He's very well informed and knows the job," said S.M. Muneer, a former president of the Federation of Pakistan Chambers of Commerce and Industry.

Dar, 60, was commerce minister in 1997 and identified export-led growth as a cornerstone of economic strategy. He set ambitious export targets and relaxed restrictions on imports of raw materials from India.

Qamar, as chairman of the Privatisation Commission under Bhutto in 1994, set an ambitious two-year target for Pakistan to complete its privatisation programme.

Azhar Saeed Butt, deputy of the Federation of Chambers of Commerce, said, "Qamar was privatisation minister and knows the economy, but Dar has the edge as he knows the problems at the ministry."

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