Thaindian News

Islamabad, April 27(ANI): Pakistan is expecting a disbursement of 981 million dollars by the United States by June under the coalition support fund and the Kerry-Lugar-Berman Act.

Speaking at a news conference, Pakistan Finance Minister Dr Abdul Hafeez Shaikh said that the recent visit of the country’s economic team to the US as part of the spring meetings of the World Bank and the IMF had gone well, and that the economic stabilisation measures taken in hand by the government were appreciated.

The government had been able to put across Pakistan’s case for growth strategy, expenditure management and emerging positive signs on the external account, he added.

Shaikh said that the IMF had agreed to ‘explore ways to facilitate’ disbursements of 500 million dollars each by the Asian Development Bank and the World Bank, and to carry out a fifth review of Pakistan’s macroeconomic situation under the existing loan programme.

He also said that about 381 million dollars were expected to be released by the US under the Kerry-Lugar-Berman Act before June 30, besides the disbursement of 500-600 million dollars under the coalition support fund before the next budget.

Shaikh identified five major challenges of the next year’s budget, and said that the top-most challenge was to maintain Pakistan’s economic stability.

“This is the key to protect recovery,” the Dawn quoted the Finance Minister, as saying.

The second challenge was how to ensure that the country was moving into a high growth trajectory, and to create a balance between growth and revenue expansion.

However, Shaikh parried questions when asked as to how long the Pakistan government could survive without the IMF assistance, but said what needed to be understood was that the economic revival plan and the revenue mobilisation programme were in the best interests of the country. (ANI)