Pakistan’s Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb Tuesday called on Saudi counterpart Saudi Finance Minister Mohammed Al-Jadaan and discussed various steps to boost investment in Pakistan, reported 24NewsHD TV channel.

On the occasion, the Saudi Finance Minister pledged to enhance bilateral cooperation with Islamabad in various spheres of life. According to the joint declaration of the meeting, the Saudi government has assured complete support for Pakistan.

According to the statements, the Saudi government will find ways to boost investment in Pakistan. The Finance Ministers discussed ways to boost investments in Pakistan.

Earlier, during an interview with Atlantic Council’s Geo-Economics Center and South Asia Center, the Finance Minister outlined Pakistan’s key measures to achieve economic stabilization by increasing the tax-to-GDP ratio, undertaking end-to-end digitalization of FBR, reforming state-owned enterprises (SOEs), boosting exports, increasing remittances, improving the business environment and attracting foreign direct investments.

He said the country had entered a much better shape this year than at the beginning of the last year, adding it had to do a lot with the nine-month SBA programme which in turn “ushered in a macroeconomic stability for the country.”

He said the country’s overall GDP was moving in the right direction, although the headline number was not that significant, however, different sectors were performing well.

He said, agriculture witnessed 5% growth owing to bumper crops; the services sector was moving quite well and inflation had come down from the peak of 37%-38% to closer to 20%-22% while the exchange rate was stable. The finance minister was of the view that the, “timely decisions and timely executions” were the key aspects to run even the smallest institution or the largest country on the planet.”

Reporter: Waqas Azeem