ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s caretaker Federal Minister for Finance, Revenue, and Economic Affairs, Dr. Shamshad Akhtar, said on Wednesday that the country anticipates raising approximately 4.5 billion dollars from multilateral and bilateral sources, excluding the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in the current financial year (2023-24).
The minister said in an interview that for the second quarter, the government expects to receive over 1.6 billion dollars from these sources.
She said the major creditors include the Asian Development Bank (ADB), the World Bank (WB), and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), adding the inflows comprised of both project-based and program-based funds.
She said that talks for some program loans have been completed, and disbursements are expected soon. Pakistan is currently meeting its debt obligations in a timely manner and intends to continue doing so in the future.
Pakistan’s IMF Programme
Talking about the IMF program, she said that the first review of the Standby Agreement was successfully concluded, and a Staff Level Agreement has been reached. This is subject to approval by the IMF’s Executive Board, and upon approval, Pakistan will have access to around $700 million.
On the current economic situation, the minister said that despite domestic and international challenges during FY2023, fiscal and external sector stability has been achieved through different stabilization measures and structural reforms.
The fiscal deficit stood at 7.7 percent of GDP during FY2023 as compared to 7.9 percent last year while the current account deficit FY2023 narrowed down by 87.2 percent to 2.2 billion dollars against a deficit of 17.5 billion dollars in FY 2022.
She said that the trade deficit was contained by 38.7 percent in FY2023 as compared to the expansion of 36.4 percent in FY2022.
The minister said that the caretaker government took charge in a very tough economic environment; turning around the economy was a difficult task and required careful economic planning, policy consistency, and a favourable external economic environment.
She added that the government is quite vigilant of the challenges and risks emanating from the external and domestic sides and is taking timely steps to address them.
