Crucial $1.1 bln IMF deal eludes Pakistan for now; talks continue

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KARACHI — Pakistan and the International Monetary Fund said on Friday they were still discussing a deal to provide the South Asian nation with $1.1 billion in funds critical to keeping its economy afloat.

An IMF mission left Islamabad on Friday after 10 days of talks aimed at releasing the funds, part of a $6.5 billion bailout that Pakistan signed in 2019.

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Finance Minister Ishaq Dar told reporters Pakistan had agreed with the IMF on the conditions to release the funds, which has been delayed since last December. Talks with the IMF would resume virtually on Monday, he said, adding that “routine procedures” were behind the delay.

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“We will implement whatever has been agreed upon between our teams,” Dar said. In a statement, Pakistan IMF Mission Chief Nathan Porter confirmed talks were continuing, adding that considerable progress had already been made.

Pakistan is in dire need

of a successful outcome. The $350-billion economy is still reeling from devastating floods last year, and the government estimates rebuilding efforts will cost $16 billion.

The heavily indebted nation only has enough foreign reserves to cover less than three weeks of crucial imports. The longer it takes for the IMF tranche to be paid out, the higher the risk of

default

, analysts say.

Last week, Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif called Pakistan’s economic situation “unimaginable.”

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“Ideally, Pakistan should have reached a staff level agreement at the end of the IMF mission,” Khaqan Najeeb, a former finance ministry adviser, told Reuters.

“Delay is untenable.”

The so-called staff-level agreement, which then needs to be approved by the IMF’s head office in Washington, must be reached before the funds are disbursed.

In addition to the stalled tranche, another $1.4 billion remain of the $6.5 billion bailout program, which is due to end in June.

Experts said Pakistan needs the payout as soon as possible. “If this drags on for, say, longer than a month, things get more difficult as our forex reserves have reached a critical level,” former central bank Deputy Governor Murtaza Syed told Reuters.

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The conditions set by the IMF include a return to a market-based exchange rate and higher fuel prices, measures that Pakistan recently implemented and that have already sent inflation to a record high – 27.5% year-on-year in January – and created shortages in some imported goods.

Dar said Pakistan had also agreed with the IMF to introduce fiscal measures, including new taxes.

Analysts fear more fiscal tightening could tip the economy further into crisis.

“The government has not only wasted over five months in realizing the gravity of the situation, it is still sleepwalking the country into an economic abyss,” said Sakib Sherani, who served as the finance ministry’s principal economic adviser in 2009-10. (Reporting by Ariba Shahid and Charlotte Greenfield, writing by Miral Fahmy, editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan)