IMF to give $450m emergency loan for flood aid

As more aid from the IMF is expected in the coming weeks, demonstrators march against the new loan plan.

LAHORE: The International Monetary Fund will give Pakistan $450 million emergency loan for flood aid, providing some relief for a government overwhelmed by the disaster.

IMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn said in Washington on Thursday that the funds would be dispersed in ‘coming weeks’.

Strauss-Kahn said discussions with a delegation led by Finance Minister Abdul Hafeez Shaikh on how to ‘reorganise’ an $11 billion IMF loan program.

He said Islamabad remained committed to terms including tax and energy sector reforms.

The IMF package had kept afloat and economy that was already fragile before the floods rampaged from the northwest to the south, damaging crops and infrastructure which Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani estimated could hit $43 billion, almost one quarter of last year's gross domestic product.

Meanwhile demonstrators marched against the new International Monetary Fund (IMF) loan plan in front of the World Bank's offices in Islamabad.