ISLAMABAD: Pakistan will require a comprehensive consensus on the political front to execute much needed structural reforms, said IMF’s Resident chief Tokhir Mirzoeve on Thursday.
In response to challenges facing Pakistan on account of current account and budget deficits, Mirzoev said the current financial year had been extremely challenging for policymakers because of rising external and fiscal imbalances, reported The News.
He stressed the concerned authorities had already undertaken various measures to control these imbalances, but focus should remain on them to maintain macroeconomic stability in the period ahead.
For privatizing loss-making public-sector enterprises like PIA and PSM, it would be critical to have political consensus between political parties in this regard. According to sources, IMF is revising its forecasts for Pakistan’s current account and budget deficits for ongoing financial year, which will be shared with its Executive board by end of February or early March this year.
Talks held between IMF and Pakistan in December 2017 had discussed and agreed upon macroeconomic projections, but a few of them were being finalized after receiving the December figures including ones linked to budget and current account deficit.
The country’s current account deficit reached $7.4 billion during first half of current financial year 2017-18 and govt forecasted CAD to be at $12.4 billion for FY 2017-18 compared to $12.4 billion for FY 2016-17.
But Ministry of Finance officials admitted the forecast for current account deficit in FY 2017-18 had been revised upwards and would touch $14 billion. The government is busy concluding financial data for first six month of FY 2017-18, which will soon be available publicly.
The government already revised its forecast upwards for budget deficit to over 5 percent of GDP against initial estimates of 4.2 percent of GDP for FY 2017-18. The official confessed controlling budget deficit below 6 percent of GDP would be a major challenge for the incumbent government as elections approach.
