Talking to a private news channel, she maintained that energy shortfall has been reduced by 30 percent.

She said the budget deficit has increased as the government has cleared all the circular debt in energy sector. Pakistan has gone through difficult times.

She said government's policy was to control inflation; therefore monetary policy has been tightened.

Hina added that the government reduced GST rate from 17 to 16 percent and provided relief to people.

She said that government suffered a loss of Rs. 40 billion due to reduction in GST rate to benefit people as it will help reduce prices of all those commodities on which it is imposed.

Copyright APP (Associated Press of Pakistan), 2011