Pakistan, IMF to hold another round of talks over economic data

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan and International Monetary Fund (IMF) technical talks could not conclude, and another round of talks will be held today, ARY News reported.

The sides failed to fill the gap in talks over their versions with regard to the economic data, sources said.

Policy talks between the sides have been delayed as conclusion of the technical talks lingering on. “The policy talks now expected to begin on February 07 instead of 06”, sources said.

Pakistan and the IMF officials have differences over the figures of budget deficit and the tax data. The government officials have failed to convince the IMF over their point of view, sources said.

IMF officials said that the tax revenue of Pakistan will likely remain 840 billion rupees down, while the Pakistani delegation keeps the figure down by 450 bln rupees.

Pakistan’s economic team have to convince with the IMF delegation with regard to the economic data in a meeting today, sources added.

Sources yesterday said that Pakistan has left no option other than hiking the prices of petrol, diesel, electricity and gas. The final decision for the toughest decisions will be taken by the prime minister.

The federal government is also expected to take the other political parties into confidence regarding the tough economic decisions in the upcoming all-parties conference.

In the four-day technical talks, the federal government and the IMF mission held discussions to reduce the budget deficit. Different plans were discussed to reduce the burden of external debt payments.

Sources said that the government presented a plan to reduce Rs611 billion in budgetary expenditures. Moreover, the government also agreed on limiting the subsidies to up to Rs340 billion.

The details of the mini budget also came into discussion. The IMF demanded to increase the sales tax rate from 17% to 18%.

They also deliberated on ending discounted sales tax rates for different sectors.

It was learnt that the authorities will end discounted sales tax worth Rs110 billion for the different sectors, moreover, the government also mulled over introducing a new clause in the mini budget for the imposition of flood levy.