Pakistan approaches Saudi Arabia, UAE to meet IMF conditions

ISLAMABAD: The Pakistani government has approached Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates (UAE) to meet International Monetary Fund (IMF) conditions, ARY News reported on Saturday.

As per details, the Prime Minister’s Office and Finance Ministry officials have contacted the Saudi Arabian and UAE officials but so far no response has been received yet.

The IMF has demanded Pakistani government get a written guarantee from the friendly countries for the deposit.

Sources said that Saudi Arabia and UAE have sought some time to assure the IMF regarding the deposit and did not respond to the request yet.

The government will inform the IMF officials when the friendly countries respond to the request. After the assurance, the IMF will hold a virtual meeting with Pakistani officials, sources added.

According to sources within the finance ministry, all the other matters are sorted out with IMF regarding the bail-out package.

Earlier, the International Monetary Fund resident representative Esther Pérez Ruiz said that the IMF bailout package is not linked to elections in Pakistan.

Esther clarified that it had not placed any condition for the revival of the loan programme for Pakistan. “We cannot interfere in the constitutional process of Pakistan through a loan programme.”

The IMF representative told local media the targets set by the global lander at the aggregate federal and provincial government level, adding that there was fiscal space in the targets to allocate or reset priorities for spending and/or raise additional revenues to carry out constitutional activities.