ISLAMABAD   -   Foreign inflows have al­most dried up amid the suspension of IMF loan programme, which is putting pressure on for­eign exchange reserves as well as on local cur­rency against US dollar.

The country has re­ceived only $505.7 mil­lion from multilater­al and bilateral sources and foreign commercial banks in May. Earlier in April this year, the mul­tilateral and bilateral sources had given only $262.14 million foreign loans to the country. Pa­kistan was receiving foreign loans at a rapid pace before the no-con­fidence motion against the previous govern­ment and suspension of IMF loan programme in March this year as the and working on it with effective diplo­macy at different forums. She said, “In­dia today is not a secular state, it has become a rogue state and it has be­come a nation which is not going on the principles.” Khar said that Pakistan was in no isolation as its foreign policy is moved in the right direction with all diplomatic missions working compli­catedly on all fronts.

She said Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari himself made telephon­ic calls to the Secretary General of Unit­ed Nation and to the Secretary General OIC. Now the OIC was raising voices for Muslims without any fear and the forum brings things to the table.

With respect to BRICS, she said there was absolutely no denying of the fact that China was the most effective stra­tegic partner of Pakistan. “China is part of BRICS which means Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, where all the member countries have to work to cooperate each other”, she added.

The minister said foreign policy of a country was useful if it served the inter­ests of the people of that country.

She said that in BRICS “we do not have a role but we still have core roles in many other international forums such as heart of Asia”.

About the case of Afia Siddiqui, the minister of state for foreign affairs said as far as fighting her case was con­cerned, Pakistan was doing it at ev­ery level and that the country was consistent in its policy across the gov­ernments to fight in favour of the case. But obviously, she said, every country had its own laws, rules and regulations besides its sovereign right.

The coalition government is all set to pass the federal budget 2022-23 today [Wednesday] with majority of votes, af­ter completing legislation on demands for grants of different ministries and di­visions. Rejecting a dozen cut motions put forward by the PTI’s dissidents, the government successfully in Tuesday’s sitting approved demand for the grants related to the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting over Rs 10.83 billion.