The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has revised Pakistan’s foreign loan requirement to USD 25 billion for this fiscal year, reducing it by USD 3.4 billion, The Express Tribune newspaper reported, adding that it also lowered Pakistan’s economic growth projection to just 2 per cent. The Express Tribune is an English-language daily in Pakistan. Sources in Pakistan’s Finance ministry, the IMF had also lowered its inflation projection for the country to 22.8 per cent for this fiscal year, reducing it from 25.9 per cent. The IMF did not accept the finance ministry’s projections for the current account deficit (CAD), imports, economic growth, inflation and gross financing requirements.
However, it adjusted all these numbers during the first review talks in comparison with the estimates of July this year, as per The Express Tribune. The revisions to the gross external financing requirements–a sum of money needed to fill the CAD as well as the repayment of maturing debt–and to the macroeconomic projections were made during this week’s first review of the USD 3 billion bailout package. The international lender remained successful in acquiring a date for the general elections and in return ignored a few critical areas, which in the past had become a cause for the failure of the previous USD 6.5 billion bailout package, as per The Express Tribune. It also brought the activities of the Special Investment Facilitation Council under its purview.
The finance ministry spokesperson, Qamar Abbasi, did not respond to a request for comments. The IMF has, in comparison to July 2023, lowered the foreign loan requirements for this fiscal year from USD 28.4 billion to USD 25 billion–a reduction of USD 3.4 billion. In four months, the government has already borrowed USD 6 billion while it expects rollovers of USD 12.5 billion. The remaining needs are about USD 6.5 billion in addition to the efforts to secure USD 12.5 billion debt rollovers, said the sources, according to The Express Tribune. —
