Kristalina Georgieva, Managing Director International Monetary Fund (IMF), lauded Pakistan’s economic progress, saying the country was moving in the “right direction”.
“This is indeed the right trajectory, the right direction to travel,” said Georgieve while lauding Aurangzeb and his team for their “dedication to stay the course”.
She remarked while moderating a panel discussion, titled “A Path for Emerging Market Resilience,” on the second day of AlUla Conference for Emerging Market Economies in Saudi Arabia.
PM Shehbaz, IMF’s Georgieva discuss ongoing programme
The session was attended by Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb and his counterparts from Türkiye, Brazil, and Egypt.
Cash-strapped Pakistan is currently under a $7 billion IMF bailout program and navigating a tricky path to recovery.
The South Asian nation narrowly averted a sovereign debt default, with reserves not sufficient enough to meet a month’s worth of controlled imports.
During the session, Aurangzeb shared the economic performance, including achieving a primary surplus in the ongoing fiscal.
“We are very clear that on the export side, if we have to grow sustainably it has to be export-led growth. We have to fundamentally change the DNA of the economy, and we are working towards that,” he said.
Aurangzeb shared that due to government measures the macroeconomic indicators of the country have improved.
“The overall debt to GDP ratio, which was north of 73% has now come into the mid-60s, and we just need to make sure that we make it sustainable as we go forward.”
Aurangzeb is attending the two-day high-level event on the special invitation of his Saudi counterpart, Mohammed Al-Jadaan.
The conference, jointly organized by the IMF and the Saudi Ministry of Finance, aims to foster discussions on building resilience and sustainable economic growth amid global economic uncertainties.
During the discussion, the finance minister said that developing economies like Pakistan were relatively in a good place as they had entered 2025.
“We have entered 2025 on a relatively strong note, in terms of macro stability, resiliency of the banking sector and the bold structural reforms, which a number of economies are undertaking at this point in time.
“Therefore, a lot is in our control in terms of staying the course,” he added.
Meanwhile, a three-member IMF mission is scheduled to visit Pakistan to conduct a Governance and Corruption Diagnostic Assessment under the country’s 2024 Extended Fund Facility programme.
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