ISLAMABAD: Finance Minister Miftah Ismail expects the economy to grow more than 3.5% for the fiscal year that began in July, Bloomberg News reported on Saturday.

Ismail predicted inflation – hitting a 47-year high and the second highest in Asia – was near its peak and would average 15% for the year, the report said.

Restrictions on luxury items could stay in place longer than currently expected, Ismail said. The minister added that he wants Pakistan to survive within its means and that the decades-old system will need to be changed to boost the economy.

He argued that import payments should equal dollar inflows. He went on to say that the government can delay the purchase of luxury items while bearing in mind the current situation, the British press service reported.

After months of strenuous efforts, the Executive Board of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on Monday approved the seventh and eighth revisions to the stalled $6 billion program for Pakistan last Friday.

Weekly inflation, based on the Sensitive Price Index (SPI) rate, rose sharply to 45.5% on an annual basis – the highest level in a decade – due to a surge in vegetable prices, as the country also begins to embrace the worst impact of disastrous floods in the country which affected more than 33 million people.

The Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) reported on Friday that the SPI-based inflation rate jumped to 1.31% in the week ended September 1 from a week earlier. It was also the third week in a row that the inflation rate has steadily increased, largely due to supply chain disruption amid floods that have sent the price of essential goods skyrocketing.