Islamabad, PTI
In its efforts to put the cash-strapped economy back on track, the Pakistan government has decided to formally approach the IMF for a medium-term Extended Fund Facility during the upcoming Annual Spring Meetings of Bretton Woods Institutions next week, a media report said on Wednesday. Islamabad will make a request for the medium-term Extended Fund Facility (EFF) with the possibility of augmenting through climate finance as Pakistan’s delegation led by Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb will attend the meetings to be held from April 15 to 20 in Washington DC, source reported.
The Bretton Woods Institutions are the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) called so as both were set up at a meeting of 43 countries in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, USA in July 1944.
In mid-March, IMF’s global team reached a staff-level agreement with the Pakistani authorities on the second and final review of Pakistan’s stabilisation programme supported by the global lender’s USD 3 billion standby arrangement approved in July last year.
On March 26, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif too had indicated that his government is planning to approach the IMF for another programme, days after the economic crisis-ridden country struck a staff-level agreement with the global lender regarding the disbursal of the final tranche of USD 1.1 billion.
