By Staff Reporter
ISLAMABAD: Finance minister Ishaq Dar held talks with the top United Arab Emirates diplomat in Pakistan on Wednesday to seeks external financing commitment — a key IMF condition for release of stuck-up bailout loan — from the friendly county.
The IMF has tasked Pakistan to secure financing assurances from other multilateral institutions and friendly countries to unlock a $6.5 billion loan programme to avoid a default.
Pakistan and the IMF have been negotiating since early February on an agreement that would release $1.1 billion to the cash-strapped country.
The UAE has assisted Pakistan financially in the past with deposits in the State Bank.
A day earlier Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said on the floor of the house that the IMF “wants external financing commitments fulfilled from friendly countries before it releases bailout funds”.
“Now we are being told that the commitments from friendly countries be fulfilled and God willing we will,” Sharif told the parliament.
Several friendly countries including Saudi Arabia, China and the UAE, have made commitments to help Pakistan fund its balance of payments.
The lender has been negotiating with Islamabad since early February to resume $1.1 billion in funding held since November, part of a $6.5 billion bailout agreed in 2019.
The IMF funding is critical for Pakistan to unlock other external financing avenues to avert a default on its obligations. Its diminished central bank reserves barely cover four weeks of imports.
A government statement said the finance minister Dar and “H.E. Mr. Hamad Obaid Ibrahim Salim Al-Zaabi, Ambassador of the United Arab Emirates shared the deep rooted brotherly relations between the two countries and discussed avenues of furthering and strengthening economic and financial ties between the UAE and Pakistan”.
“The Ambassador of the United Arab Emirates appreciated development-oriented economic policies of Pakistan initiated by the present government and expressed the interest of the UAE in augmenting and furthering investment in various sectors of the economy of Pakistan.”
Minister Dar “welcomed the investment proposals of the UAE in Pakistan and extended full support and cooperation by the government”.
The UAE January lent $1 billion to Pakistan and rolled over an existing $2 billion loan.
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