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‘Significant progress’ made towards staff-level agreement: IMF

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• Mission chief sees finalisation of deal in ‘coming days’
• Miftah holds reforms failure responsible for delay

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) have made significant progress towards a staff-level agreement (SLA), but have yet to finalise the deal as part of the first review under the 37-month Extended Fund Facility (EFF) worth $7 billion.

“The IMF and the Pakistani authorities made significant progress towards reaching an SLA on the first review under the EFF,” mission chief Nathan Porter said in IMF’s end-of-mission statement released following the conclusion of the first biannual review on Saturday.

An IMF team, led by Mr Porter, visited Islamabad and Kar­achi from Feb 24 to March 14 to hold discussions on the first review of Pakistan’s economic programme supported by the EFF and on a possible new arrangement under the IMF’s Resilience and Sustain­ability Facility (RSF).

“Programme implementat­ion has been strong, and the discussions have made conside­rable progress in several areas, including the planned fiscal consolidation to durably reduce public debt, maintenance of sufficiently tight monetary policy to maintain low inflation, acceleration of cost-reducing reforms to improve energy sector viability, and implementation of Pakistan’s structural reform agenda to accelerate growth, while strengthening social protection and rebuilding health and education spending,” Mr Porter said.

“Progress has also been made in discussions on the authorities’ climate reform agenda, which aims to reduce vulnerabilities from natural disasters-related risks, and accompanying reforms which could be supported under a possible arrangement under the Resilience and Sustainability Facility (RSF),” he added.

The Fund official said the mi­­s­sion and the authorities wo­uld continue policy discussions virtually to finalise these discussions over the coming days.

“The IMF team is grateful to the Pakistani authorities, private sector, and development partners for fruitful discussions and their hospitality throughout this mission,” Mr Porter said.

‘Reforms delay agreement’

Former finance minister Dr Miftah Ismail claimed that the SLA could not be signed due to the government’s failure to implement structural reforms.

“I believe the government has fallen behind on some reforms,” he said, adding that negotiations would continue over the next two weeks to reach an agreement on the remaining issues.

Dr Ismail said that SLA was generally expected to be signed at the conclusion of the IMF mission’s deliberations with Pakistani officials. However, he said he expected the government to make commitments for reforms that would lead to the signing of the SLA.

Initially, it was expected that the Fund would demand a mini-budget to bridge the revenue shortfall, but it instead made significant revisions to the total Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) revenue collection target by adjusting for declines in inflation and growth. The combined impact of these two was estimated to be more than Rs600 billion.

Top tax officials at the FBR appeared at ease with the review’s findings, describing it as a positive step. “We are no longer concerned about our tax collection target following adjustments,” a senior tax official said, adding that there was no longer a drive for revenue collection under the Tajir Dost Scheme.

However, the IMF has urged the FBR to unlock the true potential of real estate. The tax-to-GDP ratio will not be revised from the current 10.6 per cent target. “We will exceed this target,” the official stated.

An official source said that IMF delegation had handed over the Memorandum of Economic and Fiscal Policies (MEFP) to the finance ministry, which would now forward the relevant sections to the ministries and divisions concerned for further action.

The talks would continue virtually on the remaining issues to finalise the MEFP, according to the official, and would culminate with the announcement of the SLA. This would be followed by IMF’s Executive Board approval for the disbursement of about $1.1bn by early next month.

The IMF statement did not specifically hint at the sticking point which caused delays in reaching an agreement on the SLA.

Pakistan secured the $7bn IMF programme in July 2024 to stabilise its economy and lay the foundation for sustainable growth. The 37-month EFF comprises six performance reviews, with the release of the next $1.1bn tranche contingent on the successful completion of this review.

Published in Dawn, March 16th, 2025

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