Talks with IMF enter final stage: minister

ISLAMABAD: Finance Minister Asad Umar on Monday said negotiations with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) had entered the final stage with settlement of almost all the issues relating to the signing of an agreement.

“We are very close to each other and there is no fundamental difference,” the minister said while speaking to media-persons after launching the State Bank of Pakistan’s Electronic Money Institutions (EMIs) Regulations here.

He said there were issues relating to timing and sequence, which had been resolved.

"Similarly, the main issue of how to reduce current account deficit had also been sorted out. Now there was no issue with unbridgeable differences," Umar said.

He said at present the IMF was engaged in summer meetings with the World Bank and soon after the meetings, its mission would visit Pakistan to finalise the bailout package.

The minister said the IMF programme usually lasted for three years and it would disburse loan to Pakistan in three tranches.

"If the IMF sanctioned $6 billion package, Pakistan would get $2 billion during the current year and in case $9 billion, it would receive $3 billion as first tranche," he said.

Umar, however, said the IMF's loan amount would not matter.

It was important that after the agreement, he said, the world's trust in Pakistan would be restored and it would be able to get more funds from the international bond market.

With respect to aid from friendly countries, the minister said Saudi Arabia had released its total pledged amount of $3 billion, China had transferred $2.1 billion, and the United Arab Emirates had also remitted $2 billion out of a total committed amount of $3 billion.

China, he said, had also pledged to import goods worth $1 billion from Pakistan.

All the formalities in that regard had already been finalised and the process to dispatch goods to China would begin during the current month, Umar said.

To a question regarding delay in the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) projects, he said work on all the pending projects, including the multi-billion rupees ML-1 railway track, would start soon.

The minister further said shortfall in tax revenues during the current fiscal year was mainly due to the government's efforts to curtail the current account deficit, which resulted in significant decline in imports.

About 40 percent revenue was generated from the imports, he added.