Pakistan will not be asking for another International Monetary Fund (IMF) package and will give an assurance to the fund that the repayments of loans would be on time.
This consensus developed on Tuesday night among the participants of the delegation leaving tonight for Washington to attend the annual Spring Meeting of the IMF and World Bank. Dr Shahid Amjad, the newly-appointed adviser to the prime minister, who is also leading the Pakistani delegation to the US, chaired the meeting. The other participants were Federal Secretary Finance Waqar Masood, Chairman Federal Board of Revenue Ansar Javeed, additional secretary finance and other team members of the delegation were from the finance department.
Governor State Bank of Pakistan, who will fly from Karachi, will join the delegation in Washington. An official who attended the meeting said that all the members including the adviser to the prime minister for finance agreed on the one-point agenda that they would not negotiate anything with the Fund which will put the country and the next elected government in trouble.
He said Dr Shahid Amjad Ch, who just joined the office one day ahead of the crucial Spring Meeting of IMF and WB, was very clear that any loan negotiations at this juncture would be dangerous for the country. Despite getting very little time to evaluate the financial position, the adviser believed the country did not need any IMF loan programme with strict conditions, which will create difficulties for the new elected government after the general election conditions then Pakistan would consider it. But no final decision would be made in haste, he added.
The official said Governor SBP informed the meeting that Pakistan would not apply for another IMF loan, as the foreign exchange position of the country will be in good position to mange the economy even after paying the scheduled instalments to the Fund. He said there was no foreign exchange crisis and payments to the IMF on account of the standby loan will be made on time as the remittances are growing.
SBP is expecting around $14.2 billion in remittances in the ongoing fiscal year (July 2012 to June 2013). Overseas Pakistani workers have so far remitted $7.117 billion in the first half (July-December 2012) of the current fiscal year.
