Pakistan Aiming For Additional $10B In Loans After IMF Deal

Pakistan Aiming For Additional $10B In Loans After IMF Deal
Pakistan is seeking to obtain an additional $9 to $10 billion in loans from multilateral creditors such as the World Bank (WB), Asian Development Bank (ADB) and Islamic Development Bank (IDB) through programme and project lending, now that it has signed a staff-level agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

According to a report by Geo News, the revival of the IMF loan programme will provide Pakistan with a Letter of Comfort (LoC) from the moneylending watchdog, which will result in the revival of programme/policy lending from the WB, ADB and IDB.

According to Finance Minister Miftah Ismail, the executive board of the IMF will meet sometime in the second week of August to discuss the approval of both the seventh and eighth reviews, as well as the release of the $1.17 billion tranche under the Extended Fund Facility (EFF).

Miftah also said that Pakistan was expecting $9 billion as project loans, in addition to a separate portion from the IMF. This means that in total, Pakistan could receive around $10 billion from multilateral creditors during the current fiscal year 2022-23.

Previously on Thursday, the news of the staff-level agreement between the IMF and Pakistan was announced.

“The IMF staff and the Pakistani authorities have reached a staff level agreement on policies to complete the combined 7th and 8th reviews of Pakistan’s Extended Fund Facility (EFF),” a statement by the IMF read.