Dar vows revival of critically-damaged economy.

ISLAMABAD -- Federal Minister for Finance and Revenue, Senator Muhammad Ishaq Dar said Wednesday that his government would try its best to revive the economy, which has been critically damaged during the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf government's tenure.

Talking to the media, after taking oath as Finance Minister, he said regaining the deserving value of the country's currency, bringing down inflation, and reducing interest rates were among the priorities. Earlier, President Dr. Arif Alvi administered the oath to Senator Ishaq Dar as Federal Minister.

Dar said, Pakistan was facing a severe economic crisis currently due to a quarter to four years of mismanagement by the PTI government, which had pushed the economy to a critical place, which even enemies could not have done.

The minister lamented that the PTI government had not only damaged the economy but had wasted five precious years of the country and pushed the country behind 30 years.

However, Dar was optimistic that the country would be put back on a growth path as the Pakistan Muslim League (N) had a history of correcting the economy during crises in the past.

'As a nation we had challenges, we have faced them with success in the past,' he said while citing the examples of economic restriction following the nuclear tests of 1998 and declared macroeconomic instability of 2013.

'I will not make verbal promises only,' he said and reminded of the past history of PML which had left the government in 2018 with the lowest Consumer Price Index (CPI) based inflation of 4 percent, food inflation of 2 percent, the highest growth rate of 6.3 percent, highest reserves, the interest rate at 6.25 percent and stable exchange rate of Rs104.50 against the dollar.

He said, this all was done despite three sit-ins during the period which had affected the growth rate, otherwise the figures could have touched 7.5 percent.

He said, had the country been allowed to grow at the...