Federal Minister for Finance and Revenue, Miftah Ismail said Sunday that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) had agreed to send its mission to Pakistan in middle of May 2022 for continuation of Extended Fund Facility (EFF) programme.
Addressing a press conference in Washington, the federal minister said that he and his team had very good discussion with the fund, the World Bank and IFC. He said, when the IMF mission arrives in Pakistan, the government would try to have expedited staff level agreement with it.
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When agreement is reached, we would look forward receive another tranche under the EFF, he said adding that the fund had also been requested, which it agreed, to extend this program for another year. However, he added these details would be sorted out when the fund mission reaches Pakistan.
He said, the IMF had also been requested to enhance the funding available to Pakistan from $6 billion to more.
He said the cut in development expenditures would not have effect on ongoing projects saying that the previous government had allocated Rs900 billion for the program which was then cut to Rs700 billion while so far only Rs450 billion were utilized.
Miftah said the incumbent government would fulfill all sovereign commitments made by the previous government. He said, the commitments were not done by Imran Khan as an individual but these were made by the government of Pakistan.
We are responsible to commitments made with IMF, the loans taken by previous government and the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) commitment. We are not stepping back from the commitment, he resolved.
