Islamabad
\nPakistan may not have to approach the IMF for loans as it has received \u201cpositive\u201d responses from some \u201cfriendly countries\u201d, Prime Minister Imran Khan has said, days after Islamabad formally approached the global lender for a bailout to tide over the economic crisis.<\/p>\n
Talking to a delegation of senior editors on Wednesday, Khan said his government was in touch with some \u201cfriendly countries\u201d and has sought cooperation to address the mounting balance of payments deficit and dwindling foreign currency reserves.
\nThough he did not name any countries, Pakistani media has reported that the government was consulting allies like China and Saudi Arabia for financial help.<\/p>\n
\u201cTheir response is positive. I am quite hopeful that we will not have to approach the International Monetary Fund for our economic needs,\u201d he was quoted as saying by The News.
\nImran\u2019s comments follows some tough talking by IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde and the US on Pakistan\u2019s bailout plan, demanding absolute transparency on the country\u2019s debts, including those owned by China under the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor projects.<\/p>\n
Apart from selling off surplus luxury cars, Prime Minister Khan\u2019s proposals include turning state-owned buildings into universities, dispensing with VIP security protocol and cutting air conditioning in government offices to keep the economy afloat.<\/p>\n
He said Pakistan\u2019s economy has been badly hit. He said the previous governments borrowed so much that it has become hard for his government to repay the loans.<\/p>\n
\u201cHad the former government not received loans or the amount so received was utilised properly, the economy of the country would have been in a good shape,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Pakistan Finance Minister Asad Umar met IMF chief Lagarde on the sidelines of the IMF and World Bank annual meetings in Bali, Indonesia on October 12 and formally requested a \u201cstabilisation recovery programme\u201d.<\/p>\n
He said the government don\u2019t want to fully rely on the IMF and would do anything to bring improvement in the economy.<\/p>\n
He said the loan programme with the IMF is almost final, but the government will have to see that the IMF does not place any undoable conditions for Pakistan in return.<\/p>\n
Lagarde has made it clear to Umar that the IMF would require absolute transparency on Pakistan\u2019s debts, including those owned by China under the multibillion dollar CPEC.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Islamabad Pakistan may not have to approach the IMF for loans as it has received \u201cpositive\u201d responses from some \u201cfriendly countries\u201d, Prime Minister Imran Khan has said, days after Islamabad formally approached the global lender for a bailout to tide over the economic crisis. Talking to a delegation of senior editors on Wednesday, Khan said […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":44842,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[87],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-44841","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44841","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44841"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44841\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44843,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44841\/revisions\/44843"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44842"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44841"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44841"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44841"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}