Pakistan’s Finance Minister Ishaq Dar on Sunday announced a hike in gasoline and diesel prices across the country after a week that saw the national currency, the rupee, plummet 12 percent of its value against the dollar following the withdrawal of the exchange rate cap.
The minister announced the hike on television just ten minutes before it came into effect, in a decision that puts the price of gasoline and diesel at around a dollar a liter.
Dar has stressed that the increase is aimed at cushioning the rise in international crude oil prices and should, in principle, put to rest the rumors that have prevailed this week about a possible fuel shortage in the country, reports the newspaper ‘Dawn’.
The minister’s appearance also comes just a few days before the arrival of a delegation from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to discuss the reactivation of the process for the delivery of a new tranche of the loan granted to Pakistan by the international institution, which is currently completely paralyzed.
This tranche, estimated at about $1.1 billion, should have been disbursed in November last year as part of the $6 billion package agreed in 2019.
The IMF loan is considered vital for the economy of a country mired in a currency crisis, beset by political instability and still hobbled by last year’s devastating floods that left more than 1,700 dead and property damage worth 15 billion euros.
Source: (EUROPA PRESS)
