PESHAWAR: Former finance minister Hammad Azhar on Saturday said Russia was really eager to sell Pakistan gas and oil on 30 per cent less rates.

Addressing media in Peshawar, Hammad Azhar also claimed that the government would raise Rs30 per liter more on diesel.

“About Rs20-30 in the petrol price are those which have been raised because of the rupees’ depreciation by Rs22 a dollar.

“Rest of the Rs20-30 are because of the international markets for which we had found a solution that Russia was extremely eager to sell us gas and oil on 30 per cent less rates for which Russian authorities had approached me through the Pakistani ambassador to bring the ongoing negotiations into written form,” he said.

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He said he wrote them a letter and said that first the government would by cargos. The letter was still present on his Twitter account’s timeline, he said.

“If we had availed the opportunity, neither our foreign reserves’ situation would have been so bad nor the government had to increase petrol price by Rs30 per liter,” he said adding that India slashed its petrol price up to Pakistani Rs25 per litre a couple of days ago from the day when our government jacked up Rs30 on petrol.

Presenting an overview of the national economy during about six weeks of the coalition government, the senior Pakistan Tehreek e Insaf (PTI) leader said rupee had lost its value by Rs22 in last 45 days during tenure of the government that had been imposed on the nation, which make about 50 paisas per day on an average.

He said Pakistan’s Eurobonds were being traded at 6 per cent before the vote of no confidence against former prime minister Imran Khan. Explaining about Eurobonds, he said its rate was decided viewing country’s outlook that how much the country had the potential. “The lower it is the greater potential of the country is considered to be,” he added.

It was quite a competitive rate then even during Covid-19, which had reached to 25-30 per cent during the last 45-50 days, which showed that the international markets were watchful of Pakistan’s economic risk, he said.

Hammad Azhar said Sri Lanka had also started crumbling from 8-10 per cent Eurobonds and before its being defaulted, its Eurobonds had reached 45 per cent.

Further highlighting the ongoing economic woes, he said, similarly, foreign reserves of Pakistan since the vote of no confidence had depleted by more than 30-35 per cent.

The stock market had collectively crashed more than 6,000 points, while rupee was also in free fall he said adding that the growth rate and current account deficit had also deteriorated.

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