ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s minister for finance has said Pakistan and the International Monetary Fund had “more or less” finalized a bailout package, local media reported on Saturday, six months after Islamabad requested financial assistance from the Fund to address its economic challenges.
Wrestling with a ballooning current account deficit, Pakistan sought its 13th IMF bailout package in October. Currently, foreign reserves of $8.5 billion are better than the start of the year, but barely cover two months’ worth of imports.
“During the last two days, we have, more or less, reached an understanding,” Dawn newspaper quoted Asad Umar as saying at a news briefing in Washington on Thursday evening. “In the next day or two, we hope to reach a full agreement.”
He said as a next step, IMF officials would now visit Pakistan in the next few weeks to work out technical details. “But in principle, we have reached an agreement,” Umar added.
The finance minister, who reached Washington on Tuesday evening, left for New York on Friday after two days of talks with the IMF and World Bank officials on the sidelines of the group’s spring meetings. The team of experts that came with him remains behind in Washington to finalize the details of a multi-billion dollar, three-year bailout package.
Talks with the IMF began soon after Prime Minister Imran Khan’s government was appointed last August but a package has been held up by differences over the pace and scale of reforms that Pakistan would be required to undertake.
The IMF has pressed Pakistan to improve tax revenue collection, bolster foreign currency reserves and narrow a current account deficit expected to top 5 percent of gross domestic product this year.
Pakistani officials say they agree on the need for reforms but do not want to sign up to conditions that would derail the economy, with growth set to slow this year to around 4 percent from 5.2 percent last year.
Last month Asad Umar said Pakistan and the IMF had reduced their differences. He has also repeatedly said the IMF was not demanding that Pakistan set a market-oriented exchange rate.
Pakistan says IMF bailout package ‘more or less’ final
Pakistan says IMF bailout package ‘more or less’ final
- Finance minister says hoping for a “full agreement” in the next few days
- Pakistan launched talks with the IMF for its 13th financial assistance package in October
Sindh assembly passes resolution rejecting move to separate Karachi
- Chief Minister Shah cites constitutional safeguards against altering provincial boundaries
- Calls to separate Karachi intensified amid governance concerns after a mall fire last month
ISLAMABAD: The provincial assembly of Pakistan’s southern Sindh province on Saturday passed a resolution rejecting any move to separate Karachi, declaring its territorial integrity “non-negotiable” amid political calls to carve the city out as a separate administrative unit.
The resolution comes after fresh demands by the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) and other voices to grant Karachi provincial or federal status following governance challenges highlighted by the deadly Gul Plaza fire earlier this year that killed 80 people.
Karachi, Pakistan’s largest and most densely populated city, is the country’s main commercial hub and contributes a significant share to the national economy.
Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah tabled the resolution in the assembly, condemning what he described as “divisive statements” about breaking up Sindh or detaching Karachi.
“The province that played a foundational role in the creation of Pakistan cannot allow the fragmentation of its own historic homeland,” Shah told lawmakers, adding that any attempt to divide Sindh or separate Karachi was contrary to the constitution and democratic norms.
Citing Article 239 of Pakistan’s 1973 Constitution, which requires the consent of not less than two-thirds of a provincial assembly to alter provincial boundaries, Shah said any such move could not proceed without the assembly’s approval.
“If any such move is attempted, it is this Assembly — by a two-thirds majority — that will decide,” he said.
The resolution reaffirmed that Karachi would “forever remain” an integral part of Sindh and directed the provincial government to forward the motion to the president, prime minister and parliamentary leadership for record.
Shah said the resolution was not aimed at anyone but referred to the shifting stance of MQM in the debate while warning that opposing the resolution would amount to supporting the division of Sindh.
The party has been a major political force in Karachi with a significant vote bank in the city and has frequently criticized Shah’s provincial administration over its governance of Pakistan’s largest metropolis.
Taha Ahmed Khan, a senior MQM leader, acknowledged that his party had “presented its demand openly on television channels with clear and logical arguments” to separate Karachi from Sindh.
“It is a purely constitutional debate,” he told Arab News by phone. “We are aware that the Pakistan Peoples Party, which rules the province, holds a two-thirds majority and that a new province cannot be created at this stage. But that does not mean new provinces can never be formed.”
Calls to alter Karachi’s status have periodically surfaced amid longstanding complaints over governance, infrastructure and administrative control in the megacity, though no formal proposal to redraw provincial boundaries has been introduced at the federal level.
