Pakistan and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) have mutually agreed to a number of points for the completion of ninth review of the Extended Fund Facility (EFF), entitling Pakistan to a 1.2 billion dollars tranche.
This was stated by Minister for Finance Ishaq Dar at a news conference in Islamabad on Friday after conclusion of talks with the IMF Mission that was on a visit to Pakistan.
Sharing broad contours of the understanding reached with the IMF, the Finance Minister said taxation measures of one hundred and seventy billion rupees will be taken as opposed to the rumours of seven hundred to eight billion rupees.
Ishaq Dar said reforms in the energy sector will be implemented and its main thrust is to check the flow of the circular debt.
He said the circular debt in the gas sector will be brought to zero while untargeted subsidies will be minimized. He said these decisions in fact are in the country's own interest to fix the economy.
The Finance Minister said commitment vis-a-vis Petroleum Development Levy has almost been fulfilled.
He said it has been decided to increase the budget of Benazir Income Support Program by forty billion rupees from 360 billion rupees to 400 billion rupees in order to reduce the burden of inflation on the most vulnerable segments of the society.
Ishaq Dar said we have received Memorandum of Economic and Financial Policies (MEFP) from the IMF and talks on it will virtually be started from Monday.
The Finance Minister said that Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif during a Zoom meeting with the IMF Mission expressed Pakistan's resolve to fulfill the commitments. He recalled that the agreement was signed by the previous government back in 2019.
Ishaq Dar said the next tranche for Pakistan will be released after approval by the lender's executive board.
Source: Radio Pakistan