IMF to work with international community to support flood-ravaged Pakistan

By Staff Reporter

ISLAMABAD: The International Monetary Fund (IMF) said on Sunday it would work with the international community to support Pakistan’s relief and reconstruction efforts following the catastrophic floods.

“The IMF is deeply saddened by the devastating impact of the floods in Pakistan. Our sympathies go to the millions of victims of the floods” a Fund statement quoted said Esther Perez Ruiz, Resident Representative to Pakistan, as saying.

“We will work with others in the international community to support, under the current program, the authorities’ relief and reconstruction efforts, and especially their ongoing endeavour to assist those affected by the floods while ensuring sustainable policies and macroeconomic stability.”

Pakistan needs financial help to deal with the catastrophic floods and hoped that the financial institutions such as IMF would take the economic fallout into account.

Record monsoon rains and glacier melt in the country’s northern mountains have triggered flash floods and rain-induced landslides that have killed over 1,500 people, sweeping away houses, roads, railway tracks, bridges, livestock, and crops.

Huge areas are inundated, and hundreds of thousands of people have been forced from their homes. The government says the lives of nearly 33 million people have been disrupted.

United Nations (UN) Secretary-General Antonio Guterres earlier said floods are estimated to have caused about $30 billion in economic losses.

The South Asian nation was already in an economic crisis, facing high inflation, a depreciating currency and a current account deficit.

Fitch Solutions last week said the country’s already weak economy will further drag on growth in the current fiscal year of 2022/23 as it confronted floods that wiped out vital cash crops in two provinces and would also exacerbate political instability.

Last month, the IMF executive board approved a much-awaited tranche disbursement to Pakistan after completing the seventh and eighth reviews of the country’s reforms under a stalled $6 billion loan programme. The Fund had also approved a Pakistan request to increase the size and duration of its $6 billion bailout programme.