Finance Minister lauds IMF, WB support extended to Pakistan

ISLAMABAD: Federal Minister for Finance and Revenue, Muhammad Aurangzeb on Tuesday appreciated the support of International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank extended to Pakistan for economic development.

According to details, the finance minister attended the G-24, Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors’ Meeting.

The Minister talked about reforms in the areas of taxation, energy, privatization and digitalization, and underlined the need to bring in more private sector investment and leverage the “Adaptation Fund” to help the country deal with adverse impacts of the climate change.

Meanwhile, Muhammad Aurangzeb also met with Ms Hela Cheikhrouhou, regional vice President for MCT, International Finance Corporation (IFC) and briefed her team on the government economic reforms in Pakistan.

He briefed on the ongoing reforms in the taxation, energy and privatization sectors.

Moreover, he expressed the resolve of the Government of Pakistan to work closely with IFC in the priority areas of securitization of remittances, mining, airport management and capacity-building.

Earlier in the day,

finance minister Muhammad Aurangzeb said that Pakistan initiated discussions with the IMF over a new multi-billion dollar loan agreement to support its economic reform program.

The South Asian nation is nearing the end of a nine-month, $3 billion loan program with the International Monetary Fund designed to tackle a balance-of-payments crisis which brought it to the brink of default last summer.

With the final $1.1 billion tranche of that deal likely to be approved later this month, Pakistan has begun negotiations for a new multi-year IMF loan program worth “billions” of dollars, Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb said during an interview in Washington.

“The market confidence, the market sentiment is in much, much better shape this fiscal year,” said Aurangzeb, a former banker who took up his post last month.

“It’s really for that purpose that, during the course of this week, we have initiated the discussion with the Fund to get into a larger and an extended program,” he added.