The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has assured Pakistan that it will facilitate the release of $1 billion in budgetary support from the World Bank and Asian Development Bank, Finance Minister Abdul Hafeez Shaikh said on Tuesday. This assurance was provided by the IMF at the spring meeting of the Fund in which Pakistan’s economic team apprised the authorities of the country’s economic situation.
“We briefed the IMF, other friendly countries donors and investors about the difficulties being faced by Pakistan and difficult decision taken for macroeconomic stability,” he said, adding that giving impetus to growth while maintaining macroeconomic stability during the next fiscal year remained a Herculean task for the government. Brushing aside impressions that Pakistan returned empty-handed from Washington, Shaikh said the IMF team recognised that significant improvement had been made on the economic front with measures taken to broaden the tax base, mobilising additional resources and reducing borrowing from the State Bank of Pakistan.
“All these measures will help retain the fiscal deficit below 5.3 percent of the GDP during the current fiscal.”He said the IMF mission would be arriving on May 8 to review the progress on economic reforms under the existing programme. The dialogue with the IMF was a continuous process and they would be assessing the economy’s performance.Calling the talks with the US fruitful, the minister said the US would be providing $381 million under the Kerry-Lugar-Berman act as budgetary support and release of arrears worth $600 million under the Coalition Support Fund during the current fiscal year.
“The US administration will introduce the revised reconstruction opportunity zones billion in the Congress,” he said.About the plans for imposing the reformed GST in the next budget, Shaikh said it was on the radar but would be decided by parliament. However, he said they would keep pushing the alternate route like they have already done during the current fiscal year.
