ISLAMABAD: Pakistan
no longer needs the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) support, Finance
Minister Ishaq Dar announced on Thursday as he alerted that the country still
needs to combine its financial improvements made over the last two years.
“Pakistan
does not need the IMF anymore,” Dar said at a news conference when asked if the
time had come for the country to bid the global financier goodbye. He was
speaking after a meeting with the director of IMF’s Middle East and Central
Asia department Madood Ahmed, who is presently coming Pakistan.
Pakistan
has already availed $5.5 billion and is going to convey the approval of the
last loan tranche of over $500 million from the first week of next month. The
upcoming talks are vital as the fund will also approve the wider framework of
the budget for the next economic year.
Dar
also broadcasted that the government has achieved the July-March budget shortfall
target of Rs. 1,012 billion set by the IMF. It has also attained most of the
structural standards for end-March period.
It
will be the first package in decades that Pakistan will complete, although
independent economists have termed this package a political package, having
Washington’s backing.
Economic
experts have long been forestalling that Pakistan will not seek another
programme, as the government would like to have greater economic right to spend
ahead of 2018 general elections.
While
making his intentions public about the future of Pakistan-IMF relations, Dar alerted
that “the country needs to work hard to combine the economic gains of the past
two and half years.” He said the country has to go a long way to attain 7%
economic growth rate, as the current step was not enough to create the required
number of jobs.
Dar
said Pakistan has attained economic and financial stability. He said the
country has enough foreign currency assets to finance over four months’ import
bills, which in 2013 were not enough to even finance few days’ import bill.
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