(Web Desk) – Pakistan is not on the agenda of International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) meetings, as a result of which, the ninth review under the Extended Fund Facility (EFF) will be delayed.
Moreover, the World Bank also put a damper on efforts to get foreign loans by linking its second RISE-II (Resilient Institution for Sustainable Economy) loan with the completion of the stalled IMF programme.
The IMF executive board issued the schedule of its meetings to be held till May 17 on its website. The next meetings are scheduled for May 11, and 15 and then again on May 17, 2023.
According to the IMF Staff report “Pakistan: Seventh and Eighth Reviews of the extended arrangement”, the deadline for the ninth review was November 3, 2022, but was delayed due to the failure of the government to implement agreed time-bound conditions and structural benchmarks, as well as, violation of the spirit of the agreed seventh and eighth review, particularly with respect to controlling the rupee rate artificially without the necessary reserves to intervene in the market and extending unfunded electricity subsidy to exporters.
The tenth review’s schedule, as per the seventh/eighth review documents, was February 3, 2023, but the ninth review is yet to be completed.
According to insiders, the IMF was working with the Pakistani authorities to bring the ninth review to a conclusion once the necessary financing was in place and the agreement was finalised.
