![]() The Saudi aviation experts will also visit Sialkot, Multan, Islamabad, and Peshawar airports. The team, which carried out a security review at the Karachi airport last week, is currently completing the second leg of aviation inspections in Lahore. ISLAMABAD: An eight-member team from Saudi Arabia’s General Authority of Civil Aviation (GACA) has arrived in Pakistan to review security processes and arrangements at Lahore airport, Pakistan Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) said in a statement on Tuesday. The fiscal adjustments have already fueled Pakistan's highest ever inflation, which rose to 37.97% in May. Pakistan had to complete a series of prior actions demanded by the IMF, which included reversing subsidies, a hike in energy and fuel prices, jacking up its key policy rate, a market-based exchange rate, arranging for external financing and raising over 170 billion rupees ($613 million) in new taxation. Islamabad hosted the IMF mission in February to negotiate a series of fiscal policy measures to clear the 9th review. The IMF's $1.1 billion funding to Pakistan, which is part of the $6.5 billion Extended Fund Facility agreed in 2019, has been held up since November. On contingency plans in case the IMF talks fall through, Sharif said Pakistan had faced challenges in the past, and if needed, will “tighten our belt” and rise again. “Some of those actions are usually met after the board’s approval, but this time the IMF required that those actions be met before the board’s approval, so we have met them.” I repeat, each and every requirement of the IMF as prior actions has been met,” Sharif said. Our ninth review by the IMF will match all terms and conditions and, hopefully, we’ll have some good news this month,” Sharif said in an interview to international media published on Monday, after a visit by the PM to the Turkish capital Ankara for President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s inauguration. “We are still very hopeful that the IMF program will materialize. Pakistan's economy has slowed, with an estimated 0.29% GDP growth for 2022-2023. The central bank's foreign reserves have fallen as low as to cover barely a month of controlled imports. This has raised concerns of a sovereign default, something which the minister dismissed. The IMF funding is crucial for the $350 billion South Asian country, which faces an acute balance of payments crisis. The PM’s comments come as hopes for a resumption of an IMF deal are diminishing, with a bailout program agreed in 2019 due to expire on June 30 at the end of the 2022-23 fiscal year. ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has said Pakistan was “very hopeful” of finalizing a deal with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) this month but the nation would “tighten our belt” and move on if the deal fell through.
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