The Finance Minister Asad Umar on Monday announced government’s decision in a video message to approach the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to deal with the economic crisis in the country.
The government aims to start talks with IMF immediately as Prime Minister Imran Khan has given the go-ahead to do so, said the finance minister in the video.
“The prime minister after consulting economic experts has decided to begin talks with the IMF to seek a recovery program to overcome the current financial crisis”, he said in the video.
The country is going through a tough time, and the previous government is responsible for that, he said.
“We have to break the cycle of reaching out to IMF every five years”, he said.
Earlier on Sunday, PM Khan had hinted at approaching the IMF for to overcome the burden of loans taken by the previous government. He also said that the government is seeking help from friendly countries to deposit funds in the State Bank to boost reserves.
A day earlier, reports surfaced stating that the government is in need of US$9 billion to fulfill the country’s fiscal needs. It was also said that the government wanted to approach IMF for a bailout package but did not want to name it so.
Since taking power, the PTI government had reiterated that it would explore multiple avenues in order to bring back a destroyed economy to stabilisation point. – @Asad_Umar pic.twitter.com/9mRJT4DmNH
— PTI (@PTIofficial) October 8, 2018