This is apropos a Business Recorder news item “IMF supportive of govt’s approach to food inflation?” carried by the newspaper yesterday. According to it, special assistant to prime minister Dr Waqar Masood has said that “discussions with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on working paper were ongoing and the Fund has accepted, in principle, government’s suggestion that expecting from Pakistan to take measures that can increase the food inflation would be grossly unfair especially during the third wave of Covid-19.”
It interestingly appears that the IMF and the PTI government are on the same page insofar as the issue or challenge of price hike is concerned. That is why perhaps the government has deferred its plan to raise power tariffs; it is, in fact, mulling extending concessional power tariffs to export-oriented sectors with a view to boosting exports. Government’s strategy seems to have worked well ahead of the 2023 general elections.
Subhan Anwar (Islamabad)
Copyright Business Recorder, 2021
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