Pak minister asks residents to chop down on tea consumption as economic system faces burden

Pakistan has been going through extreme financial challenges for months. Federal Minister for Planning and Development, Ahsan Iqbal has urged the residents to cut back tea consumption.

Pakistan minister urges residents to drink much less tea. (Image for illustration)

Pakistan’s Federal Minister for Planning and Development, Ahsan Iqbal, has urged residents to drink much less tea to maintain the economic system afloat. Ahsan Iqbal stated that Pakistanis may cut back their tea consumption by “one or two cups” per day as imports are placing further monetary pressure on the federal government.

Iqbal advised the reporters that the nation has been importing tea by taking loans.

The federal price range doc for the outgoing fiscal yr confirmed that Pakistan imported Rs13 billion (USD 60 million) price of extra tea than the final fiscal yr.

Last week, the federal government unveiled a recent $47 billion price range for 2022-23 in a bid to persuade the IMF to restart the $6 billion bailout deal, agreed by each events in 2019.

The South Asian nation of 220 million is the world’s largest importer of tea, shopping for greater than $640 million price in 2020, based on the Observatory of Economic Complexity.

Pakistan has been going through extreme financial challenges for months, resulting in a rise within the costs of meals, gasoline and oil.

Meanwhile, its international forex reserves are declining quickly. Funds held by the central financial institution fell from $16.3 billion on the finish of February to simply above $10 billion in May, based on Reuters — a greater than $6 billion drop and sufficient to cowl the price of two months of its imports.