The International Monetary Fund (IMF) issued a short four-paragraph statement after its mission’s 10-day visit to Islamabad, stressing that while it welcomes the commitment, “timely and decisive implementation of policies along with resolute financial support from official partners are critical for Pakistan to regain macroeconomic stability successfully”.
It added that virtual discussions will continue to finalise the implementation details of policies, implying that an agreement to revive the programme through a staff-level deal may still take some time as Pakistan moves to execute the prior actions.
The statement came after the IMF mission, led by Nathan Porter, held discussions from January 31-February 9 to finalise the action plan under the ninth review of the IMF bailout programme.
“The IMF team welcomes the Prime Minister’s commitment to implement policies needed to safeguard macroeconomic stability and thanks the authorities for the constructive discussions,” Porter was quoted as saying in the statement.
“Considerable progress was made during the mission on policy measures to address domestic and external imbalances.
“Key priorities include strengthening the fiscal position with permanent revenue measures and reduction in untargeted subsidies, while scaling up social protection to help the most vulnerable and those affected by the floods; allowing the exchange rate to be market determined to eliminate the foreign exchange shortage gradually; and enhancing energy provision by preventing further accumulation of circular debt and ensuring the viability of the energy sector.