According to the minister, the IMF has put five major demands before theShehbaz Sharif government for slashing down the primary deficit by Rs1,300billion through withdrawal of fuel subsidy of Rs150 billion on monthlybasis and taking additional taxation measures for reviving the stalled Fundprogramme.
“The IMF shared a list of five conditions, including withdrawal of fuelsubsidy, doing away with tax amnesty scheme, increasing power tariff,taking additional taxation measures and reducing the development program byRs100 billion to bring it down to Rs600 billionthrough the Public SectorDevelopment Program (PSDP) till end of the current fiscal year,” MiftahIsmail said in his maiden press conference.
The minister also hoped that China would roll over $2.4 billion incommercial loans soon and Islamabad was also expecting to get a rollover ofsafe deposits of $2 billion in May and July 2022. He said that thefinancing gap would be bridged to the tune of $8 to $9 billion by June2022, so that foreign currency reserves would not deplete from the existinglevels.
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The minister said that former finance minister Shaukat Tarin or the financeministry did not move any summary for providing fuel subsidy, whichaccording to estimates caused a loss of Rs150 billion, including foregonetaxes and levy. It will cost Rs1,800 billion on per annum basis, which ismore than the total expenditure on defence requirements, he added.
