In its last-ditch efforts to revive the stalled International Monetary Fund (IMF) loan, Pakistan is now hopeful of inking a deal with the IMF before they unveil the budget on June 9 (Friday), said the Ministry of Finance in an emailed response to questions from Bloomberg.
Pakistan has lined up $4 billion in external financing and hopes to obtain a deal with the lender before it unveils its budget on Friday, the Ministry of Finance in Islamabad was quoted as saying in the report.
Islamabad is now in chase of securing the remaining $2 billion in external funding gap out of a $6-billion target to revive the stalled bailout, added the Bloomberg report on Tuesday.
“Pakistan remains committed to completing the IMF program and has already demonstrated its seriousness,” the ministry said.
“Pakistan is committed to mobilizing additional liquidity despite significant contraction of the current-account deficit which has reduced the requirement,” it added.
Due to the disagreements between the local authorities and the lender, the ninth review has been stalled for more than six months, one of the longest delays for a review.
While the Bloomberg report quoted the finance ministry as saying that the country had lined up $4 billion, the remaining amount of $1 billion was not attributed to any multilateral or bilateral financing partner.
In addition to securing $4 billion in commitments, according to the finance ministry’s latest statement to Bloomberg, China and its state-owned banks have rolled over $2 billion in loan commitments, and refinanced another $2 billion separately.
