Miftah Ismail reaches Washington to resume talks with IMF

April 22, 2022 (MLN): Newly-appointed Finance Minister Miftah Ismail has reached Washington where he is expected to meet International Monetary Fund (IMF) officials for the resumption of the stalled $6 billion Extended Fund Facility (EFF) programme.

In May 2019, Pakistan and the IMF signed a staff-level agreement on economic policies for the three-year EFF program. Under the agreement, Pakistan was to receive about $6 billion over a period of 39 months.

To note, the last tranche of $1bn was approved on February 2, 2022. So far, the fund has disbursed almost $3bn to Pakistan.

Pakistan is waiting to resume talks on its seventh review of the loan facility as the program came to a standstill after the premature end of Imran Khan's government earlier this month.

“I am off to Washington DC to try and put back on track our IMF programme that PTI and [Imran Khan] derailed, thus endangering our economy,” the finance minister tweeted yesterday.

If the IMF approves the release of the 7th tranche of $900 million or $1bn under the EFF program which are crucial to rebuild reserves and stabilize the balance of payments (BoP) conditions.

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