ISLAMABAD -UNS: The finance ministry said on Friday it was very much interested in negotiating the IMF deal by being flexible on the budget the country recently presented.
The ministry’s response comes after the International Monetary Fund (IMF) expressed its reservations about the budget.
“The document is not part of the pending ninth review that has been delayed since November last year but is keenly engaged with the IMF to reach an amicable solution,” said the ministry.
In a two-page rebuttal of IMF’s Resident Representative for Pakistan Esther Perez Ruiz’s statement on the budget, the ministry said it was clarifying Pakistan’s position. It said the ninth review was conducted in early February 2023 and the government had completed “all technical issues at a fast pace”.
The only outstanding issue, it said, was external financing and it was “amicably resolved” after Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif spoke to the IMF managing director.
PPP reservations
Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) on Friday questioned its coalition partner PML-N’s intentions behind presenting an “unrealistic” and “election-oriented budget”.
PPP’s Nafisa Shah, during the budget debate in the National Assembly’s (NA) Standing Committee on Finance and Revenue, said the PML-N-led government had asked the lawmakers to take “tough decisions” in the budget but no such move was taken. “We are faced with an economic storm,” she added.
