Pakistan's finance minister said on Saturday that the country had managed to absorb pressure from elevated energy costs tied to the conflict involving Iran, while expressing concern that strikes on energy infrastructure across Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states posed a potential risk to the nation's economic prospects over the longer term.

Speaking on the margins of the IMF-World Bank Annual Meetings in Bangkok, Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb told reporters that energy stocks were sufficient to carry the country through November, with planning under way for the colder months ahead, when residential demand tends to rise. He noted that supply disruptions, fuel queues, and public-order problems had so far been avoided, and that the government intended to stay away from spot LNG purchases — which carry a steeper price tag than contracted volumes — unless conditions deteriorated to the point where no other option remained.

Armed conflict between the United States and Israel on one side and Iran on the other, which broke out in February, has contributed to a rise in global energy costs, with disruptions to oil and gas flows in the Gulf region linked to Iranian military operations against American-allied states there. Drone and missile strikes by Houthi forces on Saudi energy installations and airports have continued over recent days, unfolding against the backdrop of renewed fighting in Yemen's ongoing civil conflict.

Aurangzeb voiced concern over the intensifying conflict, noting that strikes on energy infrastructure posed a threat to any near-term recovery of economic activity, and acknowledged that he could not predict where such an escalation might lead. He observed that prolonged harm to infrastructure would push any recovery timetable further out, even once active hostilities wind down.

Pakistan is presently engaged in its 25th arrangement with the IMF — no fewer than 11 of those classified as full rescue packages — across a span stretching back to independence in 1947, with the Fund having served as a lender of last resort for the country on multiple occasions. Spread across three years, the overall package amounts to roughly $7 billion, and a $1.2 billion instalment was approved for disbursement by the Fund earlier this month.

Elevated global debt levels have led the Fund, at its annual meetings this year, to urge every economy — including those bearing the heaviest exposure to the Iran war shock — toward fiscal consolidation as a way of heading off a potential crisis. Aurangzeb noted that Pakistan had already been travelling along that consolidation path for some time.

Tax receipts have expanded over recent years, while the finance minister outlined plans to address a practice in which private businesses collect sales tax at the point of purchase but withhold the funds rather than passing them on to government accounts. Aurangzeb put the losses from such conduct at billions of dollars, and noted that room existed to strengthen income tax collection as well.

He noted that the government's programme of reforms had drawn opposition from industry bodies, lobbying organisations, and those with established interests in maintaining existing arrangements, adding that any attempt to alter the status quo tends to generate pushback from those it affects.

Privatisation of government-held enterprises forms a central plank of the conditions attached to the IMF's lending arrangement, a requirement that lands with particular weight in Pakistan, where armed forces institutions hold commercial interests spanning industries from property development to agricultural inputs. Responding to questions about those ventures, Aurangzeb maintained that none draw on public money, with military-run businesses operating on a self-sustaining basis. His statement that no exchequer funds are directed toward them came against a broader backdrop in which the armed forces have held direct governmental control for roughly two-fifths of the country's history, and under Field Marshal Asim Munir, the current army chief, their reach across key institutional bodies has expanded even as a civilian administration formally holds governmental authority.