June 4, 2003	Wednesday	Rabi-us-Sani 3, 1424

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ISLAMABAD, June 3: The People’s Party Parliamentarians (PPP) said on Tuesday the economic indicators show that the military government has ruined the country’s economy during the past three years due to its wrong policies and decisions.

PPP MNA Syed Naveed Qamar, while releasing “Facts on Economy” prepared by his party, said that the government would release lot of figures during the federal budget to fool the nation.

He said that facts and figures, collected and compiled by the PPP Economic Coordination Cell, showed that the economic growth was stagnant, foreign debt had increased, investment had decreased and the poverty level had registered an upward trend.

The PPP MNA said that the government was falsely projecting its image that they had brought economic revolution in the country.

Giving details, he said that the real GDP growth in the year 2002 was 3.61 per cent, which was almost half of the growth rate during the Benazir-led government in 1996. He claimed that the GDP was 6.60 per cent during 1996.

He claimed that the overall investment had come down from 19.4 per cent of the GDP during 1993-94 to 13.90 per cent in 2002.

Mr Qamar said that the foreign direct investment had shown a little increase and reached $486 million in 2002, but was less than the $1.102 billion investment in 1996.

The PPP MNA said that the external debt had reached $33.4 billion, highest ever in the country’s history. Similarly, he said, the internal debt had touched the figure of Rs1.696 trillion.