Pakistan will not allow money-laundering, terror-financing from its soil: Ismail Miftah

WASHINGTON: Pakistan will never allow its soil to be used for money-laundering and terror-financing, Adviser to Prime Minister on Finance Miftah Ismail told Bloomberg TV in an interview here, and also ruled out any further devaluation of rupee against the dollar.

"There is not much left to do," Ismail said to a question emphasizing on Pakistan's efforts and reforms against money-laundering, but added that the government would do whatever is left to be done. We want to fulfill our international obligations and commitment.

"Pakistan will absolutely not allow financing of terrorism or money laundering from its soil," he said while replying to a question about the recommendations of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) and the International

Cooperation Review Group (IGRC) regarding Pakistan.

"We will work with the international community, we will work with the FATG and International Cooperation Review Group and implement those reforms completely so that we are out of the grey list as soon as possible," he added.

Ismail, who is in Washington to attend spring meetings of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) also stated that he did not see any further need for rupee devaluation as things were moving in the right direction.

"I see good things happening right now and I do not see any further need for devaluation right now," he said to a question, adding that exports posted 24 percent year-on-year growth in March.

The Finance Adviser said that rupee was devalued last year because it was misaligned, adding that the exports were going down for the last three years and imports were going up at a high-speed, leading to the high trade deficit. "We thought that it was the right thing to do (then)."

However, he said that exports were now increasing and there had not been any inflation which is at present less than 4 percent. "Government of Pakistan has a lot of policy choices if we need to devalue further but we do not see any need for further devaluation," he added.

Ismail said that any financing gap that was there, the government was meeting them through loans from commercial banks.

The Finance Adviser also expressed the confidence that Pakistan would achieve 6.25 percent GDP growth next year. He said that the country posted 5.8 percent this year while the last year's growth was also revised to 5.4 percent.

He said that with the new power plants coming in as a result of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) activities which would come into play from the next year. "I am very confident that we should be able to get 6.25 percent GDP growth next year," he said.