[🇵🇰] IMF Program for Pakistan - Updates

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Nathan Porter, director of the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF’s) mission for Pakistan, in a recent interview with the Voice of America, while commenting on Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s statement that this would be the last IMF programme of Pakistan, is reported to have stated that this could be possible if Pakistan sincerely acted on economic reforms.

The crux of Porter’s statement is “if Pakistan sincerely acted on economic reform”.

Implementation of economic reforms has always been the weak link in the IMF programmes - often condoned by the IMF itself. Reforms which truly matter like power sector fiscal viability, privatization of loss-making entities and enhancing the tax revenues through widening of the tax net and efficient implementation remain un-accomplished while moving from one IMF programme to another.

Added now to these long pending requirements are the economic reforms laid out in the current (25th) IMF programme. They are far more extensive, complex and challenging and are required to be accomplished in the next 37 months when this programme will run out. So far it is not in public knowledge if the government has prepared a road map with defined milestones to achieve this ambitious target of “no further IMF debt programme”.

Unlike in the past, when the provincial budgets were out of the purview of the IMF, the new programme is expanded to the provincial budgets and their revenues. Nearly one dozen IMF conditions directly impact the provinces under the new programme.

 

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the agricultural income tax rate is to increase from 12-15 per cent to 45 per cent in January next year. There will be no support price system for food and subsidies on agriculture. All the provincial governments will refrain from giving further subsidies on electricity and gas.

Under censorship is also the fiscal discipline of the country. One of such conditions is that Pakistan needs to show a primary budget surplus of 4.2 per cent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) during the three-year programme period.

The economists fear that this would significantly squeeze non-interest expenses and put an additional tax burden of 3 per cent on the existing taxpayers. Critical is Pakistan’s external debt repayments obligations for the next four years of $ 100 billion.

Pakistan is reported to have committed to the IMF that it would refrain from repaying the USD 12.7 billion debt to Saudi Arabia, China, the UAE, and Kuwait during the programme period. This may exhaust Pakistan’s chance of further bailouts from these sources.

While the government’s thumbs-up on the rising stock market, falling inflation and significant increase in taxpayers’ base can be celebrated for a while, but this alone will not move the country out of the IMF programme. The government needs massive revenues to retire loans, meet the expenditure to run the government and sustain loss-making public sector enterprises and the ailing power sector. With much of the industry, real estate and investors out of the revenue chain, the massive revenue generation is unlikely.

 

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Critical for Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) is the country perception. The prevailing political and institutional tensions within the country are undermining the country’s perception as an attractive destination for investment.

The IMF report has underlined the importance of political stability to achieve fiscal discipline and stability. The Asian Development Bank warned that the rising political and institutional tensions may make it difficult to implement the reforms that Pakistan has committed to deliver to the IMF. The ADB said these reforms were crucial to ensuring that external lenders keep lending to Pakistan.

The cherished goal to make the current 25th IMF debt programme as the last one sounds great. The least make-believe assurance the nation needs in this regard is a roadmap with defined milestones for the next 37 months, when the current programme will run out and the nation will be on its own.

 

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IMF spells out threats to reform momentum​

• Says political economy considerations and pressures from vested interests could delay or weaken the reform momentum and put at risk still-brittle stability

Tahir Amin
October 12, 2024

ISLAMABAD: Political economy considerations and pressures from vested interests could delay or weaken the reform momentum and put at risk still-brittle stability, says the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

The Fund in its latest report stated resurgence in political or social tensions could weigh on policy and reform implementation. Political economy considerations and pressures from vested interests could delay or weaken the reform momentum and put at risk still-brittle stability.

The external environment remains challenging as well, with still tight global financing conditions, volatile commodity prices, and elevated geopolitical tensions.

Notwithstanding the new government’s intent to deepen reforms under a new Fund-supported program, political uncertainty remains significant, and pressures for easing policies and providing tax concessions and subsidies are strong.

Policy slippages, including particularly on needed revenue measures, together with lower external financing, could undermine the narrow path to debt sustainability, given the high level of gross financing needs, and place pressure on the exchange rate and on banks to finance the government (further exacerbating crowding out of the private sector, which could entrench a low-growth—low-financial-development equilibrium).

Geopolitically driven higher commodity prices or tighter global financial conditions could also adversely affect external stability.

The report also noted that the Fund faces many major enterprise risks associated with a new program. Notably, business risks are elevated due to the potential for the program to go off-track, as well as, Pakistan’s challenging security situation, which could adversely impact FDI, among others.

Reputational risks would arise if the Fund were perceived as treating Pakistan differently from other members that ostensibly enjoy less support. Alternatively, not proceeding with a new program also raises reputational risks as the new authorities, or other members, may accuse the Fund of not being even-handed, especially following the successful SBA.

Although near-term financial risks have declined since SBA approval, they remain very elevated and are to be mitigated through phased access, burden sharing, and adequate financing assurances.

Operational risks concerning staff’s in-country activities persist, although Fund activities are closely coordinated in line with policies and supported by the United Nations Department of Safety and Security (UNDSS)

The report also noted that notwithstanding recent progress, deep structural challenges continue to weigh on Pakistan’s economic prospects.

Pakistani living standards have declined relative to peers in South and South East Asia over the past decades, reflecting weak policies, inadequate investment in human and physical capital, and distortions from an outsized role of the state.

At the same time, structural fiscal policy weaknesses and repeated boom-bust cycles have increased external financing needs and depleted buffers, leaving a narrow path to fiscal and external sustainability. To build on the hard-won transient stability created over the past year, sound policies and reforms need to be strengthened and sustained.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2024