IMF

This request was made by Federal Finance Minister Ishaq Dar in his meeting with the visiting Deputy Assistant Secretary of the US Department of the Treasury for Asia, Robert Kaproth, Geo News reported. The loan programme is stalled since months and the Shehbaz Sharif government is finding it hard to implement the lender's conditions amid a tense political environment in the country with elections due in months.

Pakistan's current financial crisis is worsening with each passing day and its backfiring the element of realization more stronger that the only option they have it to comply with the tough pre-conditions of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to revive the bailout programme.

This is the largest single-day decline of the Egyptian pound's value since the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) allowed it to drop by about 14.5 per cent in late October 2022,reports Xinhua news agency. The country devalued its currency twice in 2022. The move complies with the country's "shift to a durable exchange rate regime" to contain inflation as a key demand of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which has recently approved a loan of $3 billion to Egypt to support its economic and structural reforms. The IMF's support package also includes measures to be implemented by Egypt

Under a pessimistic scenario, which envisages that Ukraine's gross domestic product will decline by 12.5 per cent, the country's foreign financing needs will be around $57 billion, the IMF said. According to Ukrainian Finance Minister Serhiy Marchenko, external financing of Ukraine's state budget is set to reach $30 billion this year.

Talking to a local media outlet, Dar said that he was not concerned whether the IMF team arrives or not to assess and finalise the pending review of the country's $7 billion Extended Fund Facility (EFF). The Minister said that the IMF team is more than welcome to visit as the compliance details for the ninth review was "completely in order".

The global economy is moving "from a world of relative predictability, with a rules-based framework for international economic cooperation, low interest rates, and low inflation... to a world with more fragility, greater uncertainty, higher economic volatility, geopolitical confrontations, and more frequent and devastating natural disasters", Georgieva said in a curtain raiser speech ahead of the 2022 Annual Meetings of the IMF and the World Bank scheduled next week.

The Pakistani rupee (PKR) appreciated by 2.42 to 219.50 against the US dollar during intraday trade in the interbank market, down from Monday's close of 221.92, Geo News reported. After months-long hectic efforts, the global money lender approved the seventh and eighth reviews of the stalled $6 billion Pakistan programme, government officials announced ON Monday night.

As per official sources, IMF and Pakistan have mutually agreed to impose at least Rs 50 per litre petroleum levy, which will be done through a gradual and consistent increase from August 2022 onwards. Miftah Ismail, Federal Minister for Finance said, "we have locked the budget for fiscal year 2022-23 in consultation with the IMF and now the Fund will consult with the State Bank of Pakistan on monetary targets."

In an effort to comply with the IMF's demands, the Pakistan government has already taken some tough major decisions including a massive increase in petroleum prices, which have been increased by at least 130 PKR, ending the fuel subsidies, while an increase of about 45 per cent in per unit charge of electricity and gas.

The global lender has asked the government to treat the Chinese CPEC power plants at par with the power plants established under the 1994 and 2002 power policies, highly placed sources told The Express Tribune. These plants had been set up under the CPEC framework agreement. The IMF's demand came after China's refusal in the past to renegotiate the terms of agreements with the independent power producers (IPPs).