WASHINGTON: Pakistan is poised to sign a preliminary deal on a review of its loan program with the International Monetary Fund this week, the country’s finance minister said, a key step required to pave the way for another $1.24 billion payout from the lender.
An IMF mission left Pakistan last week without signing a so-called staff level agreement (SLA) on the second review of the Washington-based lender’s $7 billion Extended Fund Facility and the first one on its $1.4 billion Resilience and Sustainability Facility agreed in 2024 to shore up the economy after a severe financial crisis.
“The mission was on the ground for a couple of weeks, we had very constructive dialogue with them around the quantitative benchmarks, the structural benchmarks and we’ve been having some follow-up discussions,” Muhammad Aurangzeb told Reuters during an interview on the sidelines of the IMF World Bank annual meeting.
“During the course of this week, we’re hoping that we can get the SLA done.”
Countries under IMF lending programs need to pass regular reviews, which — once signed off by the Fund’s executive board, trigger a payment of the next tranche of IMF funding.
