ISLAMABAD: Federal Finance Minister Ishaq Dar has claimed that Pakistan does not need financial programme of International Monetary Fund (IMF).
The minister said this while addressing a news conference after a meeting with the director of IMF’s Middle East and Central Asia department Madood Ahmed. Dar said that the government has achieved the July-March budget deficit target of Rs1,012 billion set by the IMF. It has also achieved most of the structural benchmarks for end-March period.
About the future of Pakistan-IMF relations, Dar said that the country needs to work hard to consolidate the economic gains of the past two and half years. He said the country has to go a long way to attain 7% economic growth rate, as the current pace was not sufficient to create the required number of jobs.
The finance minister said Pakistan has achieved fiscal and monetary stability. He said the country has sufficient foreign currency reserves to finance over four months’ import bills, which in 2013 were not enough to even finance few days’ import bill.
Ahmed also met Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. The premier appreciated the role of IMF in assisting Pakistan to achieve economic stability and said that the fund’s programme was on track for completion for the first time in the country’s history.
