عربي English Türkçe اردو فارسى
Logo
Latest News
Business

IMF Mission to Visit Pakistan This Month to Discuss New Loan

Laborers who work on daily wages wait to get hired in Karachi, Pakistan, (EPA)
Laborers who work on daily wages wait to get hired in Karachi, Pakistan, (EPA)
TT
TT

IMF Mission to Visit Pakistan This Month to Discuss New Loan

Laborers who work on daily wages wait to get hired in Karachi, Pakistan, (EPA)
Laborers who work on daily wages wait to get hired in Karachi, Pakistan, (EPA)

An International Monetary Fund (IMF) mission is expected to visit Pakistan this month to discuss a new program, the lender said on Sunday ahead of Islamabad beginning its annual budget-making process for the next financial year.
Pakistan last month completed a short-term $3 billion program, which helped stave off sovereign default, but the government of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has stressed the need for a fresh, longer term program.
“A mission is expected to visit Pakistan in May to discuss the FY25 budget, policies, and reforms under a potential new program for the welfare of all Pakistanis,” the IMF said in an emailed response to Reuters.
Pakistan's financial year runs from July to June and its budget for fiscal year 2025, the first by Sharif's new government, has to be presented before June 30.
The IMF did not specify the dates of the visit, nor the size or duration of the program.
“Accelerating reforms now is more important than the size of the program, which will be guided by the package of reform and balance of payments needs,” the IMF statement said.
Pakistan narrowly averted default last summer, and its $350 billion economy has stabilized after the completion of the last IMF program, with inflation coming down to around 17% in April from a record high 38% last May.
It is still dealing with a high fiscal shortfall and while it has controlled its external account deficit through import control mechanisms, it has come at the expense of stagnating growth, which is expected to be around 2% this year compared to negative growth last year.
Earlier, in an interview with Reuters, Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb said the country hoped to agree the contours of a new IMF loan in May.
Pakistan is expected to seek at least $6 billion and request additional financing from the Fund under the Resilience and Sustainability Trust.

Most Viewed

 
 
Business

Syria Gets New Cash Shipment from Russia 

A view of Syrian central bank, after the ousting of Syria's Bashar al-Assad, in Damascus, Syria, January 12, 2025. (Reuters)
A view of Syrian central bank, after the ousting of Syria's Bashar al-Assad, in Damascus, Syria, January 12, 2025. (Reuters)
TT
TT

Syria Gets New Cash Shipment from Russia 

A view of Syrian central bank, after the ousting of Syria's Bashar al-Assad, in Damascus, Syria, January 12, 2025. (Reuters)
A view of Syrian central bank, after the ousting of Syria's Bashar al-Assad, in Damascus, Syria, January 12, 2025. (Reuters)

Syria received a new shipment of its local currency printed in Russia on Wednesday and more shipments were expected in the future, a Syrian government official said.

The cash arrived via plane at Damascus airport on Wednesday and was taken by a convoy of several trucks to the central bank, according to a separate source familiar with the matter, reported Reuters.

Syria began paying Russia to print its currency under a multi-million-dollar contract during the 13-year-old Syrian civil war, after Damascus' previous contract with a subsidiary of the Austrian central bank was terminated due to European sanctions.

It is unclear if the arrangement is now continuing under the same terms. One source familiar with the contract said it was.

Russia backed Syrian autocrat Bashar al-Assad during the war, swaying the conflict with its bombardment of opposition groups including the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham that ousted Assad in a lightning offensive last year.

But Russia quickly moved to maintain its ties with Damascus in the weeks after Assad fled to Moscow, with an eye on keeping its two key bases in the country's coastal region.

A senior Russian diplomat visited Damascus in January and Syrian interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa held a phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Feb. 12.

Two days later, Syria received its first shipment of local currency from Russia.

The cash shipments are critical: Syria's war-ravaged economy has slid further in the past months amid a shortage of currency that Syrian officials have attributed in part to delays in the Russian cash shipments, as well as to hoarding of Syrian pounds.

A senior former Syrian official said Russian cash shipments in the hundreds of billions of Syrian pounds (tens of millions of US dollars) used to arrive in Damascus each month. Reuters could not determine exactly how much had arrived on Wednesday, the second such shipment since Assad was ousted on Dec. 8.

The cash crunch has left Syrian depositors struggling to use their savings and has piled pressure on local businesses who are already being squeezed by new competition from cheap imports as the protectionist economy is opened up by the new rulers.

Economists and analysts say Syria's cash shortage is largely behind the currency's strengthening on the black market in the months since Assad fell, while it has also been helped by an influx of visitors from abroad and an end to strict controls on trade in foreign currencies.

The pound on Thursday was trading at around 10,000 per Greenback on the black market, compared to the official central bank rate of 13,000.

It traded at around 15,000 per US dollar before Assad was toppled.

Syrian central bank governor Maysaa Sabreen told Reuters in January that she wanted to avoid printing Syrian pounds to guard against inflation.

The central bank only has foreign exchange reserves of around $200 million in cash, sources previously told Reuters, a huge drop from the $18.5 billion that the International Monetary Fund estimated Syria had in 2010, a year before civil war erupted.

It also holds nearly 26 tons of gold, the same amount it held before the war, the sources said.