As Pakistan’s foreign currency reserves dropped to an alarming $8.4 billion, a team that negotiated with a visiting International Monetary Fund (IMF) team this week told Prime Minister Imran Khan that an IMF bailout remained the only viable option.
On Friday, finance minister Asad Umar said it was ready to take “further corrective measures…to restore economic stability and inclusive growth,” Dawn reported, setting the stage for a second IMF bailout. The first had come in 2014.
At a Thursday meeting between Khan, Asad Umar, State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) governor Tariq Bajwa and advisor to PM Ishrat Hussain, the alarming state of Pakistan’s economy was conveyed to the PM.
SBP governor told Khan that foreign currency reserves have dropped to $8.4 billion. The last time this had happened was on 21 November, 2014, when the national reserves had dipped to $8.5 billion.
In recent weeks, Khan has hoped that Saudi Arabia and China will bail out the Pakistan economy – he personally visited Riyadh, while Pakistan army chief General Javed Qamar Bawa made a trip to Beijing – so that he doesn’t have to accept the humiliating terms of the IMF.
Government sources told Dawn that the real problem was that Khan did not want to take such a tough decision in the first 100 days of his government, and certainly not before by-elections on 14 October. The sources pointed out that his “political campaign had been based on getting rid of begging bowl.”
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