IMF team arrives to review Pakistan’s performance under $6bn package – Newspaper

ISLAMABAD: An International Monetary Fund (IMF) staff mission arrived in Islamabad to conduct the first quarterly review of Pakistan's performance under its $ 6 billion Extended Fund Facility (EFF) completed in May this year.

The successful completion of the first review would allow Islamabad to obtain around $ 453 million from the Fund in the first part of December this year, bringing the total amount to almost $ 1.44 billion. The IMF had made an initial disbursement of $ 991 million in July this year at the end of all previous actions committed by Pakistan before signing the fund's program.

The visiting team led by the Head of Mission to Pakistan, Ernesto Ramírez-Rigo, will hold technical talks with the authorities of all interested ministries, divisions and departments to examine the latest data before ending their trip on November 7 with talks at the policy level with the Adviser to the Prime Minister of Finance, Dr. Abdul Hafeez Shaikh, and Governor of the State Bank of Pakistan, Dr. Reza Baqir.

The first quarterly review is expected to be completed on a positive note as the authorities have generally shown good performance in most of the structural benchmarks and performance criteria established for the first quarter ending in September 2019.

Senior IMF officials have already praised the authorities for fulfilling their commitments "beyond expectations (of the fund)".

There are a couple of minor deficiencies, although in indicative objectives, although with significant progress. The authorities expect a positive direction even in these indicative deficiencies of total compliance during the current quarter ending in December 2019.

Authorities in Islamabad said they were comfortable with the overall progress in the fund's program in the first quarter, as their income deficit had been more than offset by non-tax revenues in excess of estimates backed by licensing fees provided by Telecommunications companies They said the government had suspended the issuance of new guarantees to the electricity and gas companies to stay within the IMF benchmarks despite pressing needs.

Published on Dawn, October 28, 2019