Pakistan meets all IMF conditions: Dar

Finance minister remains positive over expected staff-level agreement

ISLAMABAD:

Federal Minister for Finance Ishaq Dar has claimed that Pakistan has met all the conditions set by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for a staff-level agreement and that the lender’s mission for review will soon get a staff-level agreement approved by the fund’s executive board.

“The IMF will soon sign the staff level agreement with Pakistan and get approval from its executive board,’ Dar said on Monday.

The finance minister said the country has also informed the Washington-based lender about financing by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. “Saudi Arabia and the UAE have confirmed that they are going to provide respectively $2 billion and $1billlion to Pakistan,” he said.

Dar earlier held a virtual meeting with World Bank (WB) South Asia Vice President Martin Raiser. The meeting was part of the WB-IMF Spring Meetings 2023 held in Washington.

He told the official about completion of the WB-supported reforms, especially those supported under the Resilient Institutions Strengthening Programme-II (RISE), under which major reforms like harmonization of GST had been completed, said a press release issued by the finance ministry.