ISLAMABAD: Minister for Finance, Senator Muhammad Ishaq Dar on Monday reached Dubai to participate in 10th review talks between Pakistan and International Monetary Fund (IMF).
According to official sources in the Ministry of Finance, Pak-IMF talks are in progress at Dubai and Finance Minister Ishaq Dar has joined his team for leading the talks.
It is worth mentioning here that Pakistan and the IMF teams had kick-started review talks in Dubai and first technical round will be completed by the end of the ongoing month.
In policy level talks have already started whereby Finance Minister Ishaq Dar is leading Pakistani delegation and Herald Finger is heading the IMF team.
Secretary Finance Dr. Waqar Masood Khan, Governor State Bank of Pakistan Ashraf Mehmood Wathra and Chairman Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) Nisar Mohammad Khan will assist the Finance Minister in the talks.
The policy level talks will be concluded in the first week of and Herald Finger is expected to visit Islamabad for holding joint press conference with Finance Minister Ishaq Dar after the agreement on 10th review between the two sides.
Pakistan's capacity to repay the Fund has been strengthened by supportive policies, improved foreign exchange buffers on the back of strong remittances and low oil prices, and a lower budget deficit, the sources said.
Recommendations will be made for releasing 11th tranche of US $500 million loan to Pakistan after the conclusion of successful talks.
The sources further said Pakistan authorities would brief the IMF delegation in details on tax revenues, reforms in energy sector and privatization programme during the meeting.
The IMF delegation will be informed that the government has started taking effective steps for extending scope of tax net and non-tax payers are being persuaded through introducing voluntary tax compliance scheme to be integrated into tax net besides eliminating tax exemptions and phasing out the SROs.
Reforms are also underway in energy sector under which subsidy will be phased out.
The IMF delegation will also be apprised that pace of implementation of privatization process of those state-owned enterprises causing huge losses to the national exchequer.
According to the sources, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has asked Pakistan to further bolster its foreign currency reserves through various means,by the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) during the remaining period of the current fiscal year.
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