ISLAMABAD - The International Monetary Fund (IMF) on Wednesday approved the last tranche of $102 million for Pakistan.
The executive board of the IMF has given approval to release the final tranche for Pakistan. The government has successfully completed the IMF programme, which was approved in September 2013 at a time when country’s foreign exchange reserves were declining sharply. On September 4, 2013, the executive board approved the 36-month extended arrangement under the EFF amounting SDR 4.393 billion (about $6.15 billion, or 216 percent of Pakistan’s current quota at the IMF). “Pakistan will receive the amount in next two to three days,” said an official of the Ministry of Finance. He further said that government had so far received $6.01 billion in eleven tranches. This is the first time the country has successfully completed the IMF programme in 15 years, as Pakistan last time completed a one-year standby arrangement in 2001. Pakistan and IMF held talks for the last tranche in Dubai from July 26 to August 4, 2016.
The government had sought two waivers on key conditions of reducing the budget deficit and net domestic assets (NDA) of the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP)’s targets, as Pakistan missed both those targets for the 2015-16 fiscal year, which ended on June 30.
The government had already decided not to take fresh IMF programme due to healthy foreign exchange reserves. The reserves are around $23 billion, which are highest ever in country’s history.
reserves enough to cover
5-month import bill: Dar
Finance Minister Ishaq Dar on Wednesday said that Pakistan’s foreign exchange reserves have reached $23.4 billion, which are enough to cover import bill of five months. Addressing a seminar here, finance minister said that Pakistan had signed the OECD convention on 14th September 2016 in Paris. “This will help in controlling tax evasion and government will not tighten the noose around the non-taxpayers”.
He further said that Pakistan is finalizing the revised avoidance of double taxation agreement to be signed with Switzerland. The minister said the charter of economy should be made national slogan and economy should be delinked from politics. Dar said the government is working hard to take Pakistan’s economy to the new heights.
The minister said the total revenue collection has increased from 1940 billion rupees of last year to 3112 billion rupees this year. The government has set an ambition target of 3621 billion rupees for the next year. Ishaq Dar said steps are being taken to broaden tax base in the country.