ISLAMABAD: Economic review talks between Pakistan and the IMF review mission have been completed, IMF extends review of Pakistan ‘s 3 billion bailout program till tomorrow.
An IMF team arrived in Pakistan last week to carry out the second and final review under the short-term loan program secured by Islamabad last summer. Pakistan has said it has met all the structural benchmarks and targets set by the lender, hoping that a successful completion of the evaluation will be followed by the release of a remaining tranche of around $1.1 billion.
The Finance Ministry had earlier announced the schedule of review talks ending on March 18. However, informed sources said that the two sides had hectic sector-wise meetings, which were impacted by reduced working hours due to Ramazan, thus spilling a couple of agenda items over to Tuesday.
The final wrap-up meeting, customarily represented by the finance minister, will now take place on Tuesday and the letter of intent (LOI) and (MEFP) on behalf of the minister and the governor of central bank will be finalized the same day. “Most of the work on the documentation is already complete,” an informed source said.