ISLAMABAD: The International Monetary Fund has lowered its inflation forecast for Pakistan for the current year by 3.2 percentage points to 9.5%, the finance minister said on Thursday.

The IMF’s revised projection bring it closer to Pakistan’s own projections, Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb said. He said there was no need to introduce a mid-year budget, responding to local media reports saying the government needed to revise its budget to stay on track with an ongoing $7 billion, 37-month programme with the IMF.

Aurangzeb said the IMF also revised down its import projections for Pakistan in the current fiscal year, which ends in June 2025.

Pakistan has been struggling with boom-and-bust economic cycles for decades, leading to 22 IMF bailouts since 1958. Currently the country is the IMF’s fifth-largest debtor, owing the Fund $6.28 billion as of July 11, according to the lender’s data.

The latest economic crisis has been the most prolonged and has seen Pakistan facing its highest-ever inflation rate, pushing the country to the brink of a sovereign default last year before an IMF bailout. Inflation has since eased.