Pakistan moved a step closer to concluding a financial aid package with the International Monetary Fund after Prime Minister Imran Khan overhauled his economic team and chose a former official from the Washington-based lender as governor of the nation\u2019s central bank.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Shaikh and \nBaqir\u2019s experience mean they \u201cwould be in a better position to translate\n the IMF\u2019s message and communicate between the government and the fund \ncomparatively easily,\u201d said Muhammad Arif Habib, chief executive of Arif\n Habib Corporation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Pakistan needs the financial aid to ease a \nbalance-of-payment crisis triggered by high fiscal and current-account \ndeficits and dwindling foreign exchange reserves. The South Asian nation\n has already taken 12 IMF support packages since the 1980s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Reza \nBaqir who served in senior positions at the IMF in past 18 years, \nincluding as the fund\u2019s resident representative in Egypt was named head \nof the State Bank of Pakistan at the weekend. His predecessor Tariq \nBajwa was fired along with the chief of the tax-collecting agency, \nMohammad Jehanzeb Khan. Earlier in April, Finance Minister Asad Umar \nstepped down and was replaced by Abdul Hafeez Shaikh, a former World \nBank official, as the prime minister\u2019s adviser.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Shaikh is now \nnegotiating what he called a reasonable loan package with the IMF\u2019s \nteam, led by mission chief Ernesto Ramirez Rigo, who is currently in \nIslamabad for talks with officials. Negotiations with the IMF have \nstalled twice in the past over various disagreements, such as the \nexchange rate policy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Pakistan\u2019s credit score was downgraded by \nS&P Global Ratings in February, which cited a weak economic outlook \nand the delay in securing an IMF bailout. The rupee weakened 18 percent \nin the past year, the worst-performing currency in Asia, while the \nbenchmark KSE-100 Index of stocks lost 15 percent and closed Friday at \nthe lowest level in almost three years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Despite seeking financial\n help from friendly nations like China, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab\n Emirates, Khan\u2019s economic worries aren\u2019t over. The government is facing\n slower economic growth and weak revenue collection, limiting its \nability to spend. The administration is due to unveil its first budget \nlater this month or early in June.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The funds secured so far \n\u201cstill appear insufficient to place Pakistan\u2019s external financing on a \nsound footing over the medium term,\u201d said Jeremy Zook, associate \ndirector at Fitch Ratings Ltd. in Hong Kong.\n\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Pakistan moved a step closer to concluding a financial aid package with the International Monetary Fund after Prime Minister Imran Khan overhauled his economic team and chose a former official from the Washington-based lender as governor of the nation\u2019s central bank. Shaikh and Baqir\u2019s experience mean they \u201cwould be in a better position to translate […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":60856,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[87],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-60855","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\/60855","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=60855"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60855\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":60857,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60855\/revisions\/60857"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60856"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60855"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60855"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60855"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}