THE finance ministry’s new three-year, medium-term debt management strategy aimed at raising long tenor foreign official and commercial loans and securing debt relief from commercial creditors is a tad optimistic, despite the agreement with the IMF on a $3bn short-term facility. The plan seeks to meet Pakistan’s external financing needs through long tenor bonds and concessional multilateral flo
HE euphoria that greeted the IMF Staff-Level Agreement on a new nine-month Stand-by Arrangement (SBA) of $3 billion was understandable. The economy was facing near-certain default and was in the midst of a deep slump, with little or no growth last financial year. This was accompanied by unprecedented inflation of 35 per cent, causing the IMF to insist on hiking interest rates further to an all-
On Friday, Pakistan finally received what many commentators hailed as a ‘breathing space for its embattled economy’ after months of uncertainty when the International Monetary Fund (IMF) announced that its staff had signed off on a short-term $3 billion loan structured over a period of nine months. That the IMF preferred to give Pakistan, teetering on the brink, a new deal under the IMF’s Stand
The Pakistani rupee has lost over 125 per cent of its value against the US dollar, sliding from Rs125 per dollar in June 2018 to Rs285 per dollar in June 2023. Several key factors have contributed to this situation, including a substantial trade deficit, diminished foreign exchange reserves, reduced foreign investment and the heavy burden of foreign debt servicing. These factors have had a detr
The Pakistani rupee gained Rs5 against the US dollar on Monday with experts attributing the local currency’s gains to the stand-by agreement reached with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) last week. According to the Forex Association of Pakistan, the rupee had appreciated to Rs285 in the open market as the stock market crossed the 2,000 mark. The interbank rate was not available due to Mond