Withheld instalments of $11.3 billion package: IMF mission to restart talks in Dubai

After concerted efforts, Pakistan has managed to convince the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to resume talks for the release of withheld two instalments of $11.3 billion package and now a Fund mission is scheduled to restart review of Pakistani economy in Dubai.
Sources said the IMF mission will hold talks with Pakistani officials in Dubai for 10 days. The senior officials of Finance Ministry and other related departments such as the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) and the Economic Affairs Division (EAD) will leave Islamabad for Dubai on February 20. Finance Secretary Dr Waqar Masood Khan will lead Pakistani side for talks with the IMF for initial stage and Finance Minister Dr Abdul Hafeez Shaikh will join the team later on for final phase of talks.
The officials working on the agenda for talks with the IMF say that the government has extended a solemn assurance that it was more than serious to take all issues committed by it previously including the most controversial Reformed General Sales Tax (RGST) and cutting down fiscal deficit to as low as 4.7 percent. They say the IMF has also been conveyed categorically that it will meet the revised revenue target to keep its fiscal deficit and other fiscal targets for the current fiscal year at projected level. The government side that will present performance report to the IMF mission for its review is more than happy that revenue side was showing better output that will help them keep fiscal deficit at targeted level. The revenue collection has shown better performance in December and relatively a reasonable collection in January this year and hopefully the same trend in going to continue for the remaining five months of the current fiscal year to take revenue collection total to Rs 1652 billion. This level of collection will help the government keep fiscal deficit around 5 percent, the officials added.
However, these officials are not convinced if upcoming talks will help Pakistan get the remaining two instalments from the IMF to have some additional inflow to keep its forex reserves at existing level. The outcome of the talks with the IMF mission will set a direction for moving forward for negotiating the release of two instalments. As a follow-up of Dubai talks, Pakistan and the IMF will have high level talks in April, which will decide the issue of release of two instalments from the Fund to Pakistan.