People in Pakistan have been asked to reduce the amount of tea they drink to keep the country’s economy afloat, media reports said.<\/p>\n
Sipping fewer cups a day would cut Pakistan’s high import bills, Federal Minister for Planning Ahsan Iqbal said, BBC reported.<\/p>\n
The country’s low foreign currency reserves — currently enough for fewer than two months of all imports — have left it in urgent need of funds.<\/p>\n
Pakistan is the world’s largest importer of tea, buying more than $600m worth last year.<\/p>\n
“I appeal to the nation to cut down the consumption of tea by one to two cups because we import tea on loan,” Iqbal said, according to Pakistani media.<\/p>\n
Business traders could also close their market stalls at 20:30 to save electricity, he suggested.<\/p>\n
The plea came as Pakistan’s foreign currency reserves continue to fall rapidly — putting pressure on the government to cut high import costs and keep funds in the country, BBC reported.<\/p>\n
The request to reduce tea drinking has gone viral on social media, with many doubting the country’s serious financial problems can be addressed by cutting out the beverage.<\/p>\n
Pakistan’s foreign exchange reserves dropped from around $16 billion in February to less than $10 billion in the first week of June, barely enough to cover the cost of two months of all its imports.<\/p>\n
Last month, officials in Karachi restricted the import of dozens of non-essential luxury items as part of their bid to protect funds.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
People in Pakistan have been asked to reduce the amount of tea they drink to keep the country’s economy afloat, media reports said. Sipping fewer cups a day would cut Pakistan’s high import bills, Federal Minister for Planning Ahsan Iqbal said, BBC reported. The country’s low foreign currency reserves — currently enough for fewer than […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18252,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18251","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-main-stories","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.testctsl.in\/indiafirstepaper\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18251","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.testctsl.in\/indiafirstepaper\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.testctsl.in\/indiafirstepaper\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.testctsl.in\/indiafirstepaper\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.testctsl.in\/indiafirstepaper\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18251"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/demo.testctsl.in\/indiafirstepaper\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18251\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18253,"href":"https:\/\/demo.testctsl.in\/indiafirstepaper\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18251\/revisions\/18253"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.testctsl.in\/indiafirstepaper\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18252"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.testctsl.in\/indiafirstepaper\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18251"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.testctsl.in\/indiafirstepaper\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18251"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.testctsl.in\/indiafirstepaper\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18251"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}