Flood losses: Pakistan discuss economic targets review with IMF

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan on Saturday discussed review of economic targets in talks for third tranche of the IMF loan with the visiting team of the lender, owing to the losses in recent flooding.

Pakistani officials briefed the visiting IMF team over flood losses as the flood affected provinces requested for review of the economic targets during the talks for third installment of the IMF loan.

Sources said that the provinces in their demand for review of the set targets argued that surplus provincial budgets could not be materialized owing to the devastating flooding.

A target of 1,464 billion surplus budget was set for the provinces during the current financial year, papers read.

According to sources Punjab could not achieve the target of Rs 740 billion surplus primary budget, Sindh has also requested the mission for reviewing Rs 370 billion budget surplus.

“Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has conditioned the budget surplus with receipt of all taxes share from the federal government,” sources said.

KP and Baluchistan required to achieve Rs. 220 billion and 150 billion surplus budgets.

“The primary budget surplus in KP, Punjab and Sindh could not be achieved owing to the flood losses,” sources said.

The issue of the provinces’ surplus budget will further be discussed with the mission officials in the policy level talks.