Finance Minister Ishaq Dar received assurances from US Ambassador to Pakistan Donald Blome on Thursday that Washington would continue to help Islamabad unlock a long-stalled International Monetary Fund (IMF) bailout. The goal of this rescue is to keep the economy of the cash-strapped nation from going into default. The guarantee was delivered at a meeting in the nation’s capital between the finance minister and the ambassador.
Details indicate that the ambassador received a briefing on the program’s development from the Washington-based lender. Finance Minister Dar asked the US ambassador to help him unlock the bailout plan at the meeting. Additionally, he told him that Saudi Arabia had committed $2 billion and that negotiations with the United Arab Emirates for a $1 billion loan were still going on. The minister requested more funding and resources, and Blome responded by promising American help.
Dar informed the ambassador on the nation’s issues and the country’s economic outlook, according to an official statement from the Ministry of Finance. He also discussed the government’s practical policy choices made to strengthen and expand the economy.
The statement said that Blome supported the government’s policies and initiatives for the nation’s economic sustainability and the socioeconomic uplift of the majority, expressing confidence in them. He offered his assistance in fostering bilateral commerce, investment, and economic ties between the two nations.
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The two parties spoke about issues of mutual interest and expressed an interest in strengthening the current bilateral ties between their respective nations. They also discussed ways to improve relations economically between the two nations. Days prior to this discussion with Blome, FinMin Dar had a business-related meeting with Hamad Obaid Ibrahim Salim Al-Zaabi, the UAE ambassador to Pakistan.
An IMF team has been negotiating a number of policy changes with the aim of getting $1.1 billion in finance for the cash-strapped economy, which is on the point of collapse, in Islamabad since early February.
For the current fiscal year, which ends in June, the IMF has asked Pakistan to get guarantees of external financing from allies and multilateral partners to close its balance of payments imbalance. The money is a part of a bailout package of $6.5 billion that the IMF authorized in 2019, which analysts say is essential for Pakistan to avoid defaulting on its responsibilities for external payments.
