IMF talks to unlock next $1.2bn set to begin today

Talks with an IMF team in Islamabad are due to open on Monday, focusing on two programme reviews tied to the $7 billion Extended Fund Facility and the Resilience Support Facility. The mission, led by Iva Petrova, will remain for nearly two weeks, leaving in the first week of October. Pakistan currently operates under a 37-month IMF arrangement designed to steady the economy via tighter fiscal management and structural overhauls.

Dawn reported that once both reviews are completed, Pakistan would qualify for about $1 billion (760 million SDRs) under the Extended Fund Facility, plus $200 million under the Resilience Support Facility. Those disbursements, totalling $1.2 billion, are expected by the end of November or early December. Separately, Adviser to the Finance Minister Khurram Schehzad said on Sunday that the government is not buying aircraft for PIA, which had been privatised after a bidding process last December.

Schehzad posted on X that no sovereign guarantee had been announced for taxpayer-funded loans, responding to social media claims about a minister arranging jet financing. Finance Minister Aurangzeb had met John Jovanovich, who heads the US Exim Bank, on the sidelines of the 81st UN General Assembly session in New York. He added that the talks went beyond PIA to aviation, refinery upgrades and Reko Diq, and that US Exim financing can be secured against the aircraft, so a sovereign guarantee is not automatically required.