Talks with IMF to begin soon

Pakistan received $8.1 billion in loans in the past six months on the back of International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) stamp, as Finance Minister Dr Shamshad Akhtar said on Thursday that talks with the global lender were about to begin for an uninterrupted flow of foreign loans. “No bilateral creditor will pay you nor any multilateral agency will take risk on Pakistan without the IMF programme,” said the finance minister. She added that due to poor credit ratings, Pakistan had also been priced out of the international capital market. “We are about to enter into negotiations with the IMF for the third loan tranche (of $1.2 billion) but the IMF team may come a bit later,” she said. The minister explained that the IMF mission would wait for finalisation of data for October-December 2023, which would be done by the end of the current month. But “we can start negotiations virtually.”