Federal Planning and Development Minister Ahsan Iqbal has blamed inflation on the PTI government.

He said after 2018, the PTI government’s policies resulted in the devaluation of the Pak rupee that laid the foundation of inflation in the country.

The PTI government reduced petroleum prices artificially, he said adding that PTI had agreed with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) that made mandatory subsidy withdrawal.

He continued: “We had no option but to act upon the IMF agreement and the government had to increase the prices at once by Rs100 per litre which fueled the inflation across the country.

 “The PTI is in the government in Pakistan’s 52% areas and Punjab play important role in stabilizing the supply chain of commodities,” 

“The Punjab government is giving free hand to the hoarders and profiteers.

“After the Ukraine war, a super shock in the supply chain of commodities across the world came when the prices of all grains jumped manifold.

“We are importing sugar, wheat and cotton which put a burden on the country’s forex reserves and global inflation added to economic woes in the country.

Pakistan witnessed the worst climate change disaster last year in which the country had to face a loss of over $30 billion, he said, adding that on January 09, friendly countries were meeting in a conference in Geneva and it is hoped that Pakistan would get the resources required to take forward the reconstruction process in the flood-hit areas of the country.

This is an unprecedented challenge that affected our agriculture production and agriculture stocks due to which Pakistan had to import a huge amount of grains and other food items, he added.