Finance Minister Shaukat Tarin said Pakistan planned to boost spending on large infrastructure projects by as much as 40 percent to create jobs and foster productivity in an economy crippled by the coronavirus pandemic.

In an interview with Bloomberg, the minister said the federal government would earmark as much as 900 billion rupees (US $ six billion) for development expenditure in the year beginning July 2021.

The federal minister said the economy needed to expand by five percent next year.