IMF scrutiny

AN IMF delegation is in Islamabad to assess progress on the Fund’s ongoing $7bn funding programme amidst hopes that the review will not encounter any serious obstacles that could delay the next tranche. The mission will evaluate how Pakistan has done on quantitative performance criteria, structural benchmarks and indicative targets for the first half of the current fiscal year. There have been some “technical slippages”, such as delays in meeting the deadlines for certain goals, like legislation on agriculture tax. Officials insist that they have covered all the bases, although the failure to meet the tax target will likely remain a major source of worry. Yet, the officials are confident that the IMF will ignore the slippages in the tax target because of a “higher-than-targeted primary budget surplus and greater-than-estimated revenue-to-GDP ratio”.