Pakistan’s tanked economy is not as much being debated as its technical default. Some economists believe it has technically defaulted because of its ballooning debt while many reject the notion.
Dr. Ashfaque Hasan Khan is one of Pakistan’s most respected economists. He is the principal and dean of the School of Social Sciences & Humanities at the National University of Sciences & Technology. He sits down with Imtiaz Gul to explain the country’s worsening debt crisis and its dependence on the International Monetary Fund’s loans and reform programs.
Dr. Khan says currency devaluation and interest rate spikes have added a debt burden of more than 100 billion dollars to Pakistan in just four and a half years. He says if more than 170 countries are surviving economic stress without IMF reform programs, why can’t Pakistan? He says Islamabad needs real leaders who can bring major in-house economic reforms to bring more stability.
About Dr. Ashfaq Hasan Khan:
Dr. Khan received a Masters degree from the University of Karachi in 1976. Two years later he earned his Masters from the McMasters University of Canberra, Australia. Also in 1985, he was given a Master’s degree from the University of Pennsylvania. Then in 1987, he received a Doctor of Philosophy degree from Johns Hopkins University.
Khan began his career as a research assistant at Applied Economics Research Center in 1976. In 1979, he took the position of research economist at the Pakistan Institute of Development Economics.
Then in 1988, Ashfaque was appointed a senior research economist at the same institute. In 1990, he became a chief researcher at the Pakistan Institute of Development Economics. Also in 1997, Khan served as a joint director at the same institute.
He worked as an economic adviser for the Ministry of Finance from 1998 to 2003. In 2003, Ashfaque held the position of director general of the Debt Office of the Ministry of Finance. In 2007, he was appointed a special secretary finance/ director general at the same office, where he worked until 2009. In addition, Khan was the spokesperson of the Government of Pakistan on economic issues from 1998 to 2009.
Courtesy: Imtiaz Gul Youtube channel