Pakistan, IMF Near Staff-Level Agreement on $7 Billion Loan Programme

ISLAMABAD – Pakistan and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) have made significant progress towards reaching a Staff-Level Agreement (SLA) on the first review of the $7 billion loan programme.

“The IMF and the Pakistani authorities made significant progress toward reaching a Staff Level Agreement (SLA) on the first review under the 37-month Extended Arrangement under the Extended Fund Facility (EFF),” IMF Mission Chief to Pakistan Nathan Porter said in a statement on Saturday.

“Program implementation has been strong, and the discussions have made considerable progress in sever-al areas including the planned fiscal consolidation to durably reduce public debt, maintenance of sufficiently tight monetary policy to maintain low inflation, acceleration of cost-reducing reforms to improve energy sec-tor viability, and implementation of Pakistan’s structural reform agenda to accelerate growth, while strengthening social protection and rebuilding health and education spending.

“Progress has also been made in discussions on the authorities’ climate reform agenda, which aims to re-duce vulnerabilities from natural disasters-related risks, and accompanying reforms which could be sup-ported under a possible arrangement under the Resilience and Sustainability Facility (RSF).

“The mission and the authorities will continue policy discussions virtually to finalise these discussions over the coming days,” he added. “The IMF team is grateful to the Pakistani authorities, private sector, and de-velopment partners for fruitful discussions and their hospitality throughout this mission.”

Also See: Pakistan, IMF Complete Technical-Level Talks For Next $7 Billion Tranche

This news is sourced from The Nation and is intended for informational purposes only.