Pakistan likely to get $2bn bailout from IMF this week

According to the sources from the Ministry of Finance, the IMF' s executive board meeting is scheduled on Wednesday to consider the proposed financial arrangement for Pakistan. The IMF's executive board will make a decision after evaluating the Pakistani government's policies and actions required for the assistance package. In the first phase, IMF will release around 2.2 billion U.S. dollar amount from a total of 6.6 billion U.S. dollars within 24 hours of approval to the account of the central bank of Pakistan. IMF and Pakistan reached an agreement of 6.6 billion U.S. dollars in July this year while the latter had already borrowed nearly 8 billion U.S. dollar loan from the IMF in 2008 to relieve its balance of payments. Economist Naeem Bukhari told Xinhua that Pakistan had already completed all requirements for this package and the IMF team would have no issue to deny the inflow. Pakistan's Finance Minister Ishaq Dar had reportedly said that the country would get a total of 12 billion U.S. dollar foreign loans from the international financial institutions in the next three years. Bukhari hoped that with the arrival of bailout package from IMF, Pakistan's foreign exchange reserves would improve and it would protect the country's currency from further depreciation against the U.S. dollar. "The incumbent Pakistani government will have to take stern measures to save its balance of payments from falling into further turmoil," said Bukhari.