World Bank restores budgetary support to Pakistan: Hammad Azhar

ISLAMABAD: Federal Minister for Economic Affairs Hammad Azhar on Friday said that the World Bank has restored budgetary support to Pakistan after more than three years, ARY News reported.

Hammad Azhar in a tweet said that the development comes after Pakistan showed improvement in economic indicators. The World Bank, and the Asian Development Bank (ADB), had suspended budgetary support to Pakistan in 2017 due to rising macroeconomic imbalances that had arisen in the economy at that time.

The ADB has already reinstated the budgetary support two months ago.

The World Bank after a gap of almost four years has decided to restore Pakistan’s budgetary support and may approve a $500 million loan to bring improvement in fiscal management.

The bank’s board of directors may approve a development policy credit by March next year, the sources at the Ministry of Finance said.

It will be the first budgetary support loan to Pakistan that the Washington-based bank will approve in four years. Last time it had approved a loan in February 2016.

The World Bank has now restored budgetary support to Pakistan on account of strengthening of economic stability.