LAHORE, Oct 25: Finance Minister Shaukat Aziz expects the country’s GDP to grow by at least 4.5 per cent this fiscal due to the better crops, 5.7 per cent growth in large scale manufacturing, and rising remittances expected to range between $3 and $4 billion at the end of the current financial year.

Speaking to the office-bearers of the Lahore Chamber of Commerce & Industry here on Friday, the minister said the attainment of 4.5 per cent GDP growth this year would pave the way for five per cent growth rate during the next fiscal year. LCCI president Yawar Irfan Khan welcomed the minister who described his visit to the chamber as a “surprise raid”.

The continuity of the economic reforms and policies introduced (by the military regime) in the last three years has been ensured after the transfer of power to the politicians (next month), said the minister.

“Leaders of all major political parties I have spoken to so far have expressed their belief in the consistency of economic policies in the larger national interest. The period of three years was too short to bring about a radical change (in the economy). Reforms must go on,” he insisted.

Mr Aziz, who is expected to get elected to the Senate on a PML-QA ticket and retained as finance minister by the next government, advised the people to show patience with the government’s efforts for improving the economy.

He said the regime had successfully averted the possibility of default, improved Pakistan’s credibility, respect and rating, and stabilized macro-economic indicators in just three years. Besides these achievements, he added, “we’ve managed to contain inflation below four per cent, reduced external liabilities to $36 billion, increased foreign exchange reserves to $8.3 billion, brought down lending rates by three per cent, reversed capital flight from the country and stabilized the exchange rate.”

Similarly, the fiscal deficit had dropped to 5.1 per cent from the average seven per cent during the 1990s despite public sector expenditure. “Debt servicing, which used to eat up 64 per cent of the country’s revenue and was heading up to 100 per cent when the present government took over, has now been reduced to 44 per cent thus protecting sovereignty of nation and individual businesses.”

He also claimed that the public sector enterprises (PSEs) like PIA, banks and KESC, were coming out of their problems and others like PTCL and U-phone are making profit. It was mainly because of the structural reforms and better corporate governance introduced by the government that the PSEs are doing better than they did in the past.

Mr Aziz also sought to play down the (positive) impact of 9/11 on the economy of the country, saying the “macro-economic stability” achieved was actually the result of the government policies. But, he added, “9/11 did help us to some extent.”

Claiming that macro-economic improvements have left a positive psychological impact on foreign investors, he stated the problems at the micro-economic level were still far from over.

“However, we have reached a point from where we can move on to attain sustainable growth, eliminate poverty, and create jobs for our younger population.” he said.