NEW YORK: Pakistan has “adequate reserves” to make repayments to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), State Bank Governor Yasin Anwar said on Thursday.

“We face no risk in not being able to make next year's IMF payments from our adequate reserves,” he said in a letter published in the Wall Street Journal.

He was clarifying a newspaper article which claimed that looming repayments to the IMF from a programme that ended last year are likely to test Pakistan's finances in the months ahead.

“The decline in our projected reserves will be partially offset by the currency swaps with China and Turkey, an increase in remittances that will exceed $13 billion this fiscal year, and additional foreign direct investment in the pipeline that includes US company investments in the power sector,” Anwar wrote.

He said that the entry of new foreign banks, increased small and medium-size enterprise lending to increase employment, huge potential for the agriculture sector and the export potential for dairy products as the fourth largest milk producer in the world, and the development of capital markets to support housing finance are the positive developments in the country's economy.

Pakistan's current banking restructuring and its successful branchless banking strategy was bringing the “unbanked” into the banking sector to increase financial inclusion, Anwar said.

The State Bank of Pakistan had stated that gross domestic product is expected to be closer to four per cent this year than the three per cent as reported by the WSJ, he added.

“It would have been nice to see a more positive light on these factors which will, in my view, be a positive sign toward alleviating the manageable stresses going forward. “I see the glass half full and    optimistic about the year ahead,” the State Bank governor added.