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ISLAMABAD: Pakistan on Monday announced that it would formally approach the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for a bailout package to address a mounting balance of payments crisis and to avoid default on international debt obligations.
“We have no other option but to go to the IMF,” Finance Minister Asad Umar said in a video statement. “We will have to take a loan to support the failing economy.”
The finance minister said the government has been consulting some “friendly countries” and Prime Minister Imran Khan has also consulted all leading economic experts as well to deal with the current economic crisis.
“After all this consultative process, it has been decided today that we should start negotiations with the IMF to get a stabilization recovery program to overcome the economic crisis,” he said.
Umar said the government will try its best to pass on the least possible burden of the “difficult decision” on the underprivileged, adding that everyone is aware of the difficult economic conditions left by the previous PML-N government for the country.
The finance minister is expected to meet the officials of the World Bank and IMF during their annual meeting in Indonesia later this week.
Pakistan has gone to the IMF repeatedly since the late 1980s. The last time was in 2013, when Islamabad got a $6.6 billion loan to tackle the economic crisis.
Economic experts, however, fear that the terms of any new loan will be more stringent than those in 2013, owing to tense relations with the United States, the lender’s biggest donor.
“Everyone knows this is a difficult decision, a difficult challenge; but this nation has proved time and again that when it takes a decision for the betterment of the country, everyone stands by it for success,” the finance minister added.