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Caretaker Minister of Finance, Revenue and Economic Affairs Division, Dr Shamshad Akhtar on Thursday said the caretaker government has taken proactive measures to stabilize the economy and build market confidence, adding that it will deliver on the International Monetary Fund (IMF) program to secure $700 million under the SBA and on external financing requirements.
The government’s stabilization efforts are anchored around the IMF stabilization package, he said in a briefing to the Senate Committee on Faience and Revenue which met in the Parliament House, said a press release issue here.
She said this has also led to the disbursement of $ 3bn in bilateral assistance (KSA $ 2bn, UAE $ 1bn).
As a result, the SBP FX reserves have increased to $ 7.6bn (1.5 months of import cover) in September, from $ 4.5bn (0.9 months of import) in June.
She said the government has normalized trade and investment flows.
“We have removed the import ban that badly impacted the availability of raw materials for the industry. The government has relaxed import restrictions, leading to the opening of L/Cs for imports and the backlog of import payments (Jan-Jul) has now been cleared.”
Similarly, foreign investors have been allowed to repatriate profits (withheld since 2022), with $ 49.2 million repatriated during Jul-Aug, an increase of 74 percent.
The caretaker government has worked to fast-track the concessional project and program loans from the multilateral institutions (WB, ADB, IsDB, AIIB).
“We have a pipeline for $ 6.3 billion in the current fiscal year, She said.”
The government is working to bring back remittances through the banking channels and have launched the SohniDharti initiative, providing Rs 80bn budget allocation to banks to increase remittances, of which Rs 20bn has been disbursed. We are targeting $ 32 billion in remittances in FY24 (from $ 27bn in FY23).
