The first round of talks between the Pakistani authorities and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has remained inconclusive therefore there’s a possibility of extension in the ongoing talks.
According to sources, the IMF delegation and the Pakistani authorities will hold brief talks on Tuesday. The two sides will discuss the new loan programme for Pakistan. They will hold talks on the Letter of Intent during tomorrow’s talks. After completion of consultations on the Letter of Intent, the two sides will move towards the agreement.
Sources say that Pakistan will also host a dinner for the visiting IMF delegation tomorrow.
The IMF mission started meetings with Pakistani officials last week as it kicked off its final review of the $3 billion short-term financing programme. Economic experts say Islamabad would easily clear the review as it had met almost all performance targets set by the lender.
Headed by Nathan Porter, the IMF’s assistant director of Central Asia and Middle East department, the mission arrived in Islamabad on Wednesday and held talks with Pakistan’s finance, energy and Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) officials on Thursday.
Pakistani officials, including Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb and Energy Minister Musadik Malik, informed the IMF team about the measures taken to implement the lender’s reforms, which included hiking energy tariffs.
“The IMF mission has appreciated measures taken by the Pakistani authorities in order to achieve quarterly program targets under the Stand-by Agreement (SBA),” an official of the Finance Division said.
He said the Pakistani side was also simultaneously working on a plan to discuss the contours of next program, which he said would be longer. The size of the next program under consideration will most likely be about $8 billion, he added.
Malik shared the government’s energy reform agenda with the Fund’s team, the official said, adding that they were informed that the government had hiked electricity and gas prices according to the prescribed schedule.
Pakistan had raised the levy on petrol and diesel to Rs60 per liter ahead of the IMF delegation’s visit, while last month, it increased the gas tariff for domestic consumers by up to 67 percent to fulfill key conditions of the fund’s final review.
