
Aurangzeb presses for climate action
Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb has stressed the importance of climate resilience, attracting foreign investment and promoting economic diversification.
He highlighted this during a series of high-level engagements on the sidelines of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund's Spring Meetings in Washington.
According to a press release issued by the finance ministry here Saturday, at the high-level dialogue of the Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage (FRLD), he highlighted climate change as an existential threat to Pakistan, recalling the devastating 2022 floods.
He stressed the urgent need to operationalise the Loss & Damage Fund with simplicity, agility and robust accountability mechanisms, urging faster disbursements to vulnerable nations.
In a meeting with Hiroshi Matano, Executive Vice President of the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA), Aurangzeb appreciated MIGA's efforts in resolving the Star Hydro power dispute and pledged full support for a potential trade finance facility.
He welcomed MIGA's upcoming mission to Pakistan and expressed hope for finalising the deal this year.
The finance minister also held a productive meeting with Thomas Lersten, a senior official from the US State Department, thanking the US for its strong participation in the minerals conference in Pakistan.
He reiterated Pakistan's desire for constructive engagement to address tariff issues, for which a high-level trade and investment delegation was expected to visit the US.
During discussions with Makhtar Diop, managing director of the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the minister highlighted Pakistan's strong macroeconomic indicators, including Fitch's recent credit rating upgrade.
He urged expedited advisory work on Karachi Airport and stressed subnational governance capacity-building.
The finance minister also met with senior representatives of the United States Export-Import Bank, led by Jim Barrows and briefed them on Pakistan's improving macroeconomic fundamentals and fiscal consolidation measures, highlighting the staff-level agreement with the IMF under the EFF and RSF.
Providing them with an update on the Reko Diq project, the finance minister called for enhanced EXIM Bank support for US investment in Pakistan, expressing a desire to resolve tariff issues.
In talks with JP Morgan Chase, the finance minister underscored Pakistan's stable economic trajectory and plans to diversify markets. He reiterated Pakistan's intent to return to international capital markets through an inaugural Panda Bond issuance.
While speaking at an IMF panel discussion on "Navigating an Uncertain World," Minister Aurangzeb emphasised the importance of promoting regional trade amidst global uncertainty.
He advocated for sector and market diversification and a shift from import substitution to export-led growth, identifying the IT sector as a key driver.
Later, the finance minister met with Dev Jagadesan, acting CEO of the US International Development Finance Corporation (DFC), to discuss project pipelines, including Reko Diq, and potential US-Pakistan cooperation.
The minister also met with Baroness Chapman, minister of state for international development of the United Kingdom and thanked her for the UK's longstanding partnership with Pakistan.
He briefed her on the World Bank's 10-year Country Partnership Framework (CPF), focused on population and climate resilience.
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


Express Tribune
17 minutes ago
- Express Tribune
NA nod sought for Rs345b spending
Listen to article The government has sought ex-post facto approval from the National Assembly for nearly Rs345 billion in additional spending incurred during the current fiscal year without prior parliamentary approval. No war-related expenditures with India were booked in the accounts. A Rs60 billion supplementary grant was allocated for defence purposes in the outgoing fiscal year, but it was not war related. Pakistan's armed forces met war-related expenses with India from their regular approved budgets, said Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb. The National Assembly's approval is being sought along with the new budget. While the Rs344.6 billion figure appears high, especially against the government's claim of strict expenditure control, it is still lower than in the previous fiscal year. Under the Constitution, the federal government can approve supplementary grants for unforeseen expenditures without prior National Assembly approval. However, it must later follow the same approval process as for the new budget. Over time, this constitutional provision has been used routinely rather than exceptionally. Details show that Rs345 billion in additional spending was incurred on unbudgeted items by diverting funds from other heads. This has not impacted the overall budget size, but the volume of these grantsmost approved by the Economic Coordination Committee of the Cabinetreflects poor budgeting and financial control. Under the $7 billion International Monetary Fund (IMF) bailout package, the federal government has committed that – in order to ring fence the fiscal programme – no supplementary grants will be allowed beyond the approved budget, except in case of severe natural disasters. It has also pledged to seek ex-ante approval from the National Assembly for any spending exceeding budgetary appropriations. Sources said discussions also took place at the IMF level about discouraging supplementary grants made through internal fund reallocation, to improve fiscal discipline. The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N)-led government approved these additional grants for all kinds of expenditures, including power subsidies, the Special Investment Facilitation Council (SIFC), armed forces, helicopter repairs, hosting the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit, and discretionary spending on parliamentarians' schemes and civil armed forces' capacity building. The single largest supplementary grant was for power sector subsidies, accounting for 37% of total additional spending. The government gave Rs115 billion in supplementary grants to pay independent power producers, while Rs308 million was allocated for structural reforms in the power sector. An additional Rs14 billion was given to settle liabilities for solarising agricultural tube wells. A Rs258 million grant was issued for financial compensation to families of Chinese nationals killed in a terrorist attack that Pakistani authorities attributed to foreign involvement. The government allocated Rs59.5 billion to the armed forces in supplementary funding. This included Rs23.3 billion for Pakistan Army's counter-terrorism capacity enhancement, Rs8 billion for defence force projects, and Rs7 billion for the Jinnah Naval Base in Omara, according the finance ministry's budget book. Additionally, Rs8 billion and Rs4 billion were allocated for the Special Security Division South and North, respectivelyunits that have existed for years and should be part of the regular budget. The government also approved Rs5 billion for internal security duty allowances and Rs2 billion for technological upgrades at the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR). A Rs1.3 billion supplementary grant was provided for fence maintenance along the Afghanistan and Iran borders, while Rs800 million was allocated for developing the naval air station in Turbat. Another Rs1.8 billion supplementary grant has been allocated toward overhauling engines of VVIP aircraft, according to the finance ministry's budget documents. The Reko Diq mining project received Rs3.7 billion in additional funds. A Rs1 billion grant was given for hosting the SCO summit, as per the budget book. Despite some concerns, Rs2 billion was allocated to restructure Pakistan Revenue Automation Limited (PRAL) — a company and not a federal entity. An additional Rs2 billion was granted for Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) officers, and Rs1.6 billion for setting up anti-smuggling posts. For transition accommodation of FBR officers, Rs430 million was approved, and Rs869 million was provided to enhance the organisation's operational efficiency. Despite this, the FBR has posted a record Rs1.03 trillion shortfall in tax collection for the current fiscal year, with one month remaining. A compulsory Rs1.3 billion grant was given to the Election Commission of Pakistan for holding local government elections. Rs7.2 billion was allocated for Sindh-specific discretionary spending on small schemes and for operationalising the Green Line Bus Rapid Transit project. The interior ministry received a Rs4.3 billion development grant for initiatives such as transforming the National Forensic Agency, building women's facilities in tribal areas, setting up check posts, and launching water supply schemes. A Rs30 billion supplementary grant was provided for flood-affected areas of Sindh, and Rs19.2 billion was allocated for small development schemes executed by the now-defunct Pakistan Public Works Department. Sindh also received Rs9 billion in additional financial support for projects, but the finance ministry did not detail the projects. An additional Rs7 billion was given for parliamentarians' schemes and Rs23.4 billion grant was approved for the federal Directorate of Immunisation.


Express Tribune
2 hours ago
- Express Tribune
Poverty spike
Listen to article The World Bank's recalibration of global poverty lines has cast a harsh spotlight on Pakistan, estimating that 44.7% of the population, or over 107 million people, live below the lower-middle-income threshold of $4.20/day. Extreme poverty has surged to 16.5% under the revised $3/day line. While blind nationalists may deflect by blaming the worsening statistic on updated benchmarks and revised global calculations, the truth is that the numbers are actually an understatement. The 44.7% figure relies on outdated survey data from 2018-19, before the catastrophic impact of events such as the Covid-19 pandemic, record inflation and economic disarray for the past few years and the 2022 super-floods that submerged a third of the country and displaced millions. You need not be an economist to recognise that, in light of these events, the actual current poverty rate based on the World Bank's metrics is much higher. And even this outdated data tells a story that is relevant today. The restive province of Balochistan, for example, had a poverty rate of almost 70%. Pakistan has also been one of the world's worst performers in combating poverty. India managed to shrink its extreme poverty rate from over 16% in 2012-2013 to under 6% in 2022-2023, despite the increase in the nominal dollar value. Pakistan, on the other hand, saw at least 27 million more people falling under the poverty line. The first step to addressing the problem is getting more reliable data, so that the picture, no matter how brutal, is more accurate. The next step is transformative action, rather than theatrics and name-calling to divert blame for a national failure onto any one party. One of the best ways to address extreme poverty is by strengthening social services, including through cash transfers via BISP, and bolstering human capital via investment in health, nutrition and education. Tax policy reforms are also critical because a social safety net is pointless if it is financed through indirect taxes that squeeze the working poor, rather than the millionaires and billionaires who don't pay their fair share.


Express Tribune
5 hours ago
- Express Tribune
Twilight of the Empire
US President Donald Trump gestures, as he departs for Pennsylvania, on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, DC, U.S., May 30, 2025. Photo: Reuters Listen to article As a series of trends and shocks cumulatively strain the old order, US President Donald Trump, even his critics must admit, possesses the fatal gift of locating the aching pulse of the nation, only to inflame it further with self-destructive measures while eroding Washington's global credibility. He sees the symptoms of American decline clearly: deindustrialisation, a brittle middle class, bloated trade deficits, and the political cost of endless wars. But he metabolises crisis into spectacle, grievance into doctrine, and interdependence into betrayal. For decades, the US has functioned as the imperial core of a global capital-recycling apparatus. The system has depended on the continuous inflow of surplus capital from export-heavy economies, including China and Germany, to America's debt-saturated financial architecture. The US trade deficit reached an eye-watering $1.1 trillion in 2023, a figure that dwarfs those of other peripheral or semi-peripheral economies like India. In this light, Trump's populist howl against the 'indignity' of the American people, dispossessed in the very belly of global wealth, is not entirely misplaced. His instinct that endless wars serve as spectacles to obscure the real mechanism of American hegemony – the global dollar-debt regime – is accurate in a crude, pre-theoretical sense. Since the late 1960s, when America ceased being a surplus nation, its geopolitical muscle has rested not on production but on its control of the dollar as the global reserve currency. The military-industrial complex is merely the theatrical wing of a deeper financial imperialism. However, Trump is radically mistaken in his belief that punitive tariffs and protectionist swagger will resurrect 'Middle America.' Tariffs, in the late neoliberal stage, cannot revive industrial capacity gutted by decades of offshoring and rentier capitalism. Instead, they risk destabilising the very mechanism whereby America's status as a debtor empire is transformed into an asset: the recycling of dollar-denominated debt into US capital markets. If that circuit is broken, the paper wealth of Wall Street and the speculative empires of Trump's own class will collapse. To materially uplift the working and lower-middle classes that fuelled his electoral resurgence, Trump would have to declare war not on China or Brussels, but on Manhattan and Malibu, hedge funds, private equity, and speculative real estate. 'Asymmetric interdependence' For much of the post-World War II period, what was marketed as 'globalisation' was, in fact, an imperial project cloaked in liberal universals. It was the projection of American state-capitalist hegemony through a scaffold of multilateral institutions – the IMF, World Bank, WTO, NATO – and the sacrosanct status of the dollar as the planetary currency-signifier. These were not neutral frameworks but instruments of asymmetric interdependence: the United States exported capital, debt, and ideology, while importing dependence, discipline, and surplus labour from the periphery and semi-periphery. The so-called "Washington Consensus" was never a consensus but a diktat. The system also functioned through a deeper ideological fantasy that free markets and global rule-based order were apolitical, universal, and benign. However, even most liberal-internationalist critiques warn the fantasy is fraying. The very interdependence that sustained US primacy is in retreat. Firms and governments worldwide need American consumers, capital markets, and alliances, giving Washington soft coercive power. Trump's tactics have upended that balance. By 'assailing interdependence,' the administration is chipping away at the very basis of American advantage. Robert Keohane and Joseph Nye argue that order depends on stable power balances, shared norms, and sustaining institutions. Trump has shaken all three. What follows is a deeper drift into disorder, one that won't resolve until Washington either reorients itself or is overtaken by a new dispensation. The plunge may already be underway. 'In his erratic and misguided effort to make the United States even more powerful, Trump may bring its period of dominance—what the American publisher Henry Luce first called 'the American century'—to an unceremonious end,' they write in a Foreign Affairs essay. The weaponisation of the global economy hollows out the very symbolic order the US once used to legitimate its rule. By shrinking its adversaries' strategic space, Washington also corrodes the interconnected lattice that once lent credibility and allure to its empire. A tariff here, a blacklist there, and the freezing of foreign bank reserves – each may win tactical advantage, but at the cost of eroding the trust that underpinned the liberal international order. After all, what merchant or government would dare anchor long-term plans to a system where every node can be severed by a presidential signature? Trump's disruption is risky for the US precisely because new economic blocs are emerging from the wreckage of Western hegemony. Many leaders of the Global South remember colonialism and feel the 21st century liberates them from Western diktats. Where the US once posed as the sole path to progress, China's tech power and Russia's security reach now appear less like threats and more like counterweights. On soft power's front, when natural disasters strike or epidemics spread, Western-style NGOs and media have lost some of their framing power, as Chinese and Russian aid convoys now appear on television alongside those from the Red Cross. The velvet-glove diplomacy of the Cold War years – teddy bears over bombers – has been largely replaced by quarantine diplomacy, vaccine pledges, and once-dominant American development agencies playing second fiddle to Belt-and-Road contracts. In May, a major Democracy Perception Index reported that majorities of people worldwide now see the US negatively. The pollster noted that after Trump's return to the White House, America's reputation 'took a particularly massive hit in EU countries' and fell sharply everywhere. Even NATO founder Anders Fogh Rasmussen sighed that the US' standing was 'unloved' across most of the world. By contrast, China's image is improving globally, even overtaking the US in overall favourability in most regions. At home, the US is cannibalising its future. Budget cuts to core research agencies like the NSF and NIH are hollowing out the very ecosystem that once drove American innovation. Labs shrink, fellowships vanish, and global talent turns to Beijing, Singapore, or the UAE – where funding flows and visas follow. Meanwhile, China invests aggressively in semiconductors, AI, and green tech, eroding the US edge. As Oxford's Carl Benedikt Frey puts it, Trump's agenda risks dismantling the pillars of US innovation. Technological leadership is not a birthright but is built. And Washington is letting it rot. Trump's move to turn tariff-penalties and export bans into blunt instruments has worried many that he was abandoning existing rules and undermining the soft power that Washington has spent decades building. Analysts argue that American power rests on a blend of hard force and attraction, even though this very soft power has enabled hard power interventions. Interdependence with trading partners and multilateral institutions generates US leverage, while global admiration for 'American culture and ideals' makes allies pliant, they argue. Trump's assault on trade pacts and international agencies undercuts the foundation of American power and accelerates the erosion of the postwar order. In principle, if American power were absolute, it could force partners into line indefinitely. In practice, aggressive trade measures are sowing resentments. Many countries have been party to US-led trade deals expecting mutual benefit – now they wonder if Washington will simply upend their exports to punish political stances. The WTO and other legal venues, for a long time arenas where small states could begrudge larger ones, are being largely sidelined. Without clear enforcement, the most vulnerable economies will look for alternative blocs or simply bribe each other to stay out of the US orbit. The cruellest irony is that by inflicting pain on others – or threatening to – the US is undermining the very goodwill and partnerships that underpinned its postwar hegemony. The writer is a Lahore-based senior journalist