IMF tranche soon: Shaukat

Published February 7, 2002

ISLAMABAD, Feb 6: Head of the visiting four-member IMF review mission Klaus Enders has said the Pakistan government is pursuing broad economic reforms agenda to stabilise the economy.

He met Finance Minister Shaukat Aziz here on Wednesday and discussed with him the whole range of economic issues, including revenues, exports, fiscal deficit, balance of payment position and the privatisation process.

“The IMF mission is happy that we are stabilising the economy and taking important decisions which should have been taken by the previous governments,” the finance minister said.

He told Dawn that he had a very fruitful meeting with the members of the review mission and expressed the hope that there should not be any problem in securing the second tranche of $109 million, out of the $1.3 billion Poverty Reduction Growth Facility (PRGF), by March this year.

Responding to a question, he said the Fund authorities realized that Pakistan should not be expected to meet revenue collection target of Rs430 billion due to the adverse effects of the Sept 11 carnage.

“The reduction in revenues is a cause for concern to us but then you cannot do anything, keeping in view the fall in imports registered due to the terrorist blitz in the US,” the finance minister said.

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