To finalise the revenue and expenditure statistics for the upcoming four months, the Pakistani government will reopen virtual conversations with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) tomorrow. A draught Memorandum of Economic and Fiscal Policy (MEFP) or staff-level agreement will be fine-tuned as part of the negotiations (SLA). The IMF team recently assessed the effects of earlier efforts on revenue generation and their impact on closing fiscal gaps during meetings. The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has been directed to raise an additional Rs170bn in income, and other measures, including the elimination of subsidies and an increase in gas and electricity rates, will also be put into place, in order to close the gap.
After receiving $1.3 billion from the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) and a second $1.1 billion tranche from the IMF soon after agreeing to the SLA, the finance ministry anticipates that the nation would be better able to satisfy its funding demands. Also anticipated to become available shortly are funds from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates totaling more than $3 billion. For the current fiscal year, the IMF predicts a financing gap of around $7 billion, but indications indicate that the nation’s foreign exchange reserves would surpass $10 billion by the end of June.