Trying to empower the poor.

The budget presentation on the floor of a friendly parliament was easy for the mild-mannered businessman-turned-politician from Karachi Dr Miftah Ismail, in his capacity as a finance minister of Pakistan for the second time. Dr Ismail, 57, a PhD in economics from Wharton School, UPenn, worked in the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in the early 1990s before returning to Pakistan to join his family business.

Eleven years back he entered politics and joined the PML-N. He was finance minister earlier in the cabinet of former prime minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi who assumed office after Nawaz Sharif for nine months (August 2017 to May 2018) in PML-N's tenure.

The budget that was deemed balanced by most reviewers, surprised the majority pleasantly. People were expecting perhaps a harsher one or at best a routine exercise. Many on either side of the political fence found Finance Minister Dr Ismail's stance on the economy refreshingly sensible though others found it to be unrealistically optimistic based on rosy assumptions.

For this exclusive interview, questions were mailed to which Dr Ismail responded via voicemail. The edited version of the interview is reproduced here:

Easily achieved growth rates make rich Pakistanis richer and trigger the balance-of-payments crisis

17. Will you be able to sell this budget to the IMF? When do you expect the IMF programme to revive?

1. By late June we should be able to sign the IMF staff-level agreement. I hope that this budget, with some additions/tweaking, will be acceptable to the Fund as long we are resolute in making sure that we don't continue with subsidies on diesel and petrol and go ahead with positive taxation for which we have set ambitious targets in the budget.

17. Both 5 per cent GDP growth and 11.5pc inflation targets appear unrealistic. Please comment.

1. It is difficult to precisely predict the inflation rate given that it depends on the monetary policy that the governor of the State Bank (SBP) decides. Right now SBP is pursuing a tight monetary policy in tandem with constricting fiscal policy. A lot, however, depends on what happens to international oil prices, edible oil prices, wheat prices, etc. Right now it is a very challenging environment so we might overshoot the inflation target or undershoot the GDP growth target. I think the targets for deficit, revenue and expenditure are robust and as long as we can keep those on track the inflation would be kept in check with a reasonable growth rate.

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