Islamabad, May 15: Pakistan is scheduled to start virtual discussions with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on the country’s upcoming fiscal budget after the visit of the IMF mission was delayed due to security reasons amid the ongoing tensions between India and Pakistan which have affected flight operations nationwide.Sources said that the IMF virtual talks holds pivotal value as the country’s government will present Pakistan’s proposed budget details to the newly-elected IMF mission chief to Pakistan.
“We still hope that the new mission chief would be able to travel to Islamabad over the weekend, which is subject to security situation. However, the adjustment to have the discussion virtually would not affect the work or the original programme schedule,” said one official.
Details revealed that the first round of the virtual discussions will start on Wednesday and continue for at least three days.
“Discussions are expected to be held virtually for the first leg. For the second leg of the talks, the IMF team is expected to arrive in Islamabad on Saturday and stay till May 23,” a source said.
The IMF discussion on the fiscal budget are happening at a time when Pakistan received its second tranche of funding from the IMF under the Extended Funding Facility (EFF).
Pakistan’s State Bank confirmed that it has received Special Drawing Rights (SDR) Rs 760 million ($1.023 billion) as part of the second tranche under the IMF EFF programme, adding that the latest disbursement will be recorded in the country’s foreign exchange reserves.
The latest disbursement of IMF’s second tranche to Pakistan follows an approval from the IMF Executive Board on May 9. The IMF also cleared a $1.4 billion funding arrangement under the Resilience and Sustainability Facility (RSF) to support Pakistan’s climate resilience initiatives during the meeting.
IMF has appointed a new mission chief for Pakistan, Iva Petrova, who is expected to lead the discussions along with the outgoing IMF mission chief Nathan Porter who carried the reputation of being strict on policy issues and kept a hawk eye on Pakistan finance ministry’s media policy.
“Pakistan will unveil the budget for fiscal year 2025-26 on June 2, making it the second budget presentation of the sitting finance minister Muhammad Aurangzeb. The factors of the budget have to be in line with the parameters set during the current meetings with the IMF,” said a government source, highlighting the critical importance of the IMF budget discussions.