Pakistan IMF
Islamabad: Pakistan is all set to get $500 million from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) as part of the $6 billion bailout package agreed in 2019. The IMF board approved an agreement earlier reached at the staff level.
Dawn reported the fund will be released once the four pending reviews of the country’s economic situation get completed. Earlier, last year in April, the IMF board postponed its board meeting as the Pakistan government failed to announce a mini-budget adjusting the economy.
The 6 billion bailout package was stalled last year after the Pakistan government refused to hike electricity and other charges that had been agreed as the part of the package.
To revive the IMF package, Pakistan took several measures including hiking electricity bills, imposition of Rs140 billion taxes, and agreed to grant unprecedented autonomy for the central bank.
This would be the third trench of the released funds. So far, it has released $1.45 billion in two trenches to the country. The approval after both sides last month agreed to club all reviews in a single one.
However, had Pakistan completed all the reviews on time, they would have gotten $2.2 billion instead of $500 million.
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