Minister for Finance, Dr. Abdul Hafeez Shaikh said on Saturday that debt to GDP remained 55.5 percent till March 2011. Addressing
a crowded post-budget press conference here, he attributed the debt
burden to be the big gap between less resources and high expenditures.He
said the government is making all out efforts to explore new avenues
for resources mobilization and reduce its expenditures through
austerity measure to contain fiscal deficit for achieving self-reliance
in the country.He
made it clear that the government has not crossed the debt limit under
the Fiscal Responsibility and Debt Limitation Law and “our debt is with
the limit of law”.
He said that last year, floods have caused US $ 10 billion or Rs.855 billion losses to the national economy.He said this has also affected the
GDP growth and due to floods the GDP during the current Fiscal Year is
2.4 percent against the target of 4.5 percent. APP
