ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s finance minister Ishaq Dar on Sunday demanded greater policy support from the International Monetary Fund and other multinational donors while addressing a meeting of top economic officials from the Middle East, North Africa, and Afghanistan in Washington.
Dar is currently visiting the United States to attend the annual IMF and World Bank meetings where he hopes to brief senior officials of the international lending agencies on the current state of his country’s economy in the wake of the recent floods.
“Finance Minister Senator Muhammad Ishaq Dar urged [the] IMF to tailor its response to the situation in Pakistan and similar countries, by taking into consideration the serious economic, social and political challenges that these countries face in [the] backdrop [of] climate-induced calamities,” said Pakistan’s finance ministry in a Twitter post.
It added that he “highlighted the humanitarian catastrophe and losses suffered by the country” during the meeting.
“Given the scale of [the] disaster, he pleaded [for] more policy support for Pakistan,” the ministry informed. “He welcomed [the] IMF instruments [of Resilience and Sustainability Trust] and Food Shock Window under [Rapid Financing Instrument] to support countries.”
The two facilities have been introduced to financially assist smaller nations.
Dar said in a recent interview with Reuters Pakistan could rely on the IMF’s new emergency “food shock” borrowing program since his country had lost much of its crops during the recent floods that killed over 1,700 people.
Senior IMF officials have also said they were sympathetic to the current economic situation of Pakistan in the wake of the floods that damaged a lot of public infrastructure in the country.
IMF director for the Middle East and Central Asia Jihad Azour informed that the fund was waiting for damage assessment reports from the World Bank and various UN agencies.
“Based on this assessment, we will need to update our numbers and based on our discussion with the [Pakistani] authorities, we will also listen to them to see what are their priorities, and how the fund can help,” he added.