AIRLINK 189.36 Increased By ▲ 1.33 (0.71%)
BOP 11.10 Decreased By ▼ -0.76 (-6.41%)
CNERGY 7.28 Decreased By ▼ -0.26 (-3.45%)
FCCL 36.65 Decreased By ▼ -1.14 (-3.02%)
FFL 14.95 Decreased By ▼ -0.29 (-1.9%)
FLYNG 26.19 Increased By ▲ 0.66 (2.59%)
HUBC 130.89 Increased By ▲ 0.74 (0.57%)
HUMNL 13.47 Decreased By ▼ -0.14 (-1.03%)
KEL 4.28 Decreased By ▼ -0.07 (-1.61%)
KOSM 6.08 Decreased By ▼ -0.09 (-1.46%)
MLCF 45.94 Increased By ▲ 0.26 (0.57%)
OGDC 201.86 Decreased By ▼ -4.57 (-2.21%)
PACE 6.12 Decreased By ▼ -0.26 (-4.08%)
PAEL 38.36 Decreased By ▼ -1.95 (-4.84%)
PIAHCLA 16.73 Decreased By ▼ -0.22 (-1.3%)
PIBTL 7.94 Decreased By ▼ -0.09 (-1.12%)
POWER 9.86 Decreased By ▼ -0.17 (-1.69%)
PPL 173.46 Decreased By ▼ -5.38 (-3.01%)
PRL 34.73 Decreased By ▼ -1.63 (-4.48%)
PTC 23.95 Decreased By ▼ -0.44 (-1.8%)
SEARL 101.74 Decreased By ▼ -1.42 (-1.38%)
SILK 1.07 No Change ▼ 0.00 (0%)
SSGC 32.70 Decreased By ▼ -3.54 (-9.77%)
SYM 17.93 Decreased By ▼ -0.30 (-1.65%)
TELE 8.14 Decreased By ▼ -0.24 (-2.86%)
TPLP 12.02 Decreased By ▼ -0.14 (-1.15%)
TRG 67.40 Increased By ▲ 0.07 (0.1%)
WAVESAPP 11.80 Decreased By ▼ -0.21 (-1.75%)
WTL 1.52 Decreased By ▼ -0.05 (-3.18%)
YOUW 3.90 Increased By ▲ 0.01 (0.26%)
BR100 11,819 Decreased By -87.9 (-0.74%)
BR30 35,000 Decreased By -554.1 (-1.56%)
KSE100 112,085 Decreased By -478.8 (-0.43%)
KSE30 34,946 Decreased By -148 (-0.42%)
Pakistan

Govt committed to reviving IMF programme, says Miftah after talks end

  • Finance minister says IMF team emphasised the importance of rolling back fuel and power subsidies
Published May 26, 2022

Minister for Finance and Revenue Miftah Ismail on Thursday said that the government remains committed to reviving the International Monetary Fund (IMF) programme, a statement that comes after talks on the 7th review under the $6 billion Extended Fund Facility (EFF) remained inconclusive.

The Fund pointed out ‘deviations’ on fiscal sides from the policies agreed in the last review. Resultantly, no staff-level agreement was reached on Wednesday while the revival of $6 billion EFF was delayed.

The Fund emphasised the urgency of concrete policy actions, including removing fuel and energy subsidies and the fiscal year 2023 budget, to achieve programme objectives. The IMF statement also indicated that the government would be taking prior actions in the federal budget for fiscal year 2022-23. The revival of stalled programme can be expected by end of July/August 2022.

Taking to Twitter, the finance minister, who returned from Doha after leading Pakistan's side of the talks, said that the government delegation had very useful and constructive discussions with the IMF team over the last week.

“We discussed significant slippages in FY22, caused in part by the fuel subsidies given in February 2022,” said Ismail.

The minister informed that the delegation discussed targets for FY23, where, "in light of high inflation, declining forex reserves and a large current account deficit, we would need to have a tight monetary policy and consolidate our fiscal position".

“Thus the government is committed to reducing the budget deficit in FY23,” he said.

Ismail added that the IMF team emphasised the importance of rolling back fuel and power subsidies, which were given by the previous administration in “contravention of its own agreement with the Fund”.

However, "the government is committed to reviving the IMF programme & put Pakistan back on a sustainable growth path", he added.

Comments

Comments are closed.