ISLAMABAD: An Inte\u00adr\u00adnational Monetary Fund (IMF) mission led by Iva Petrova is due to visit Pakistan on Feb 26 to review implementation of the $7 billion Extended Fund\u00a0Facility\u00a0(EFF) and the $1.1bn Resilience and Sustainability Facility (RSF), officials said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
During the almost two-week visit ending March 11, the engagements would be of greater significance as both sides would also discuss budget proposals based on performance this year and set broad contours of the upcoming budget (for the fiscal year 2026-27), particularly those relating to provincial finances.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The programme\u2019s performance as of end-Dece\u00admber 2025 \u2014 the period for review \u2014 has mostly been up to the mark, alb\u00adeit with a revenue shortfall, which authorities bel\u00adi\u00adeve could be reduced following a recent\u00a0super tax\u00a0ruling by the Federal Cons\u00adt\u00adituti\u00adonal Court that went in the government\u2019s favour.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The power sector would also remain under added scrutiny given volatile policymaking in the recent months, including those relating to the industrial sector, residential\u00a0fixed cha\u00adrges\u00a0and so on, altho\u00adugh circular debt numbers are within the target range.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On the positive side, Pak\u00adistan has met almost all quantitative performa\u00adnce criteria for end-Dece\u00admber 2025. However, it is lagging behind in indicative targets and structural benchmarks, which could affect future programme implementation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Given the biannual reviews of the $7bn EFF and the $1.1bn RSF, the two sides will have to agree on past performance as well as forward-looking implementation plans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Upon the successful completion of the review, Pakistan will be eligible for the disbursement of about $1bn (760 million Special Drawing Rights) under the EFF and another $200m under the RSF by the end of April.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Meanwhile, Topline Research said it expected Pakistan to meet nearly all quantitative performance criteria (QPCs).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAs per our calculation, Pakistan is likely to meet nearly all seven QPCs; however, data for one indicator is not known yet,\u201d it said, referring to the floor on targeted cash transfers, which it said was missed in the previous review by Rs1bn.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
However, it perhaps missed the point that the slippage was only technical in nature, as lower spending was not related to beneficiaries but to lower administrative expenses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Topline also observed that net international reserves were likely to remain below at around $6.7bn against the $7bn benchmark for September 2025 and below $6bn for December 2025 against the $6.5bn benchmark.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe net domestic assets (NDA) of the SBP are likely to remain in the range of Rs12.5-13.5tr vs the ceiling target of Rs14.9-15.1tr for September and December 2025,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It said that as per the State Bank, foreign currency swaps stood at $2.2bn for September 2025 and $1.86bn for December 2025, compared to ceiling targets of $2.25bn and $2bn, respectively. It also estimated primary surplus figures of Rs3.5tr and Rs4.1tr for September and December compared to targets of Rs460bn and Rs3.2tr.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe government guarantees and floor on cash transfer spending are also likely to be met as per our channel checks. Similarly, the new tax return target is also expected to be achieved,\u201d Topline said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It added that the Federal Board of Revenue\u2019s (FBR) indicative criteria were\u00a0missed\u00a0by Rs336bn but hoped that a portion of this missed target could be collected through the super tax verdict, though the collection would still remain below the annual target.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
ISLAMABAD: An Inte\u00adr\u00adnational Monetary Fund (IMF) mission led by Iva Petrova is due to visit Pakistan on Feb 26 to review implementation of the $7 billion Extended Fund\u00a0Facility\u00a0(EFF) and the $1.1bn Resilience and Sustainability Facility (RSF), officials said. During the almost two-week visit ending March 11, the engagements would be of greater significance as both […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6835,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6832","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business-economy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistanaffairs.com.pk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6832","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistanaffairs.com.pk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistanaffairs.com.pk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistanaffairs.com.pk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistanaffairs.com.pk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6832"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/pakistanaffairs.com.pk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6832\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6834,"href":"https:\/\/pakistanaffairs.com.pk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6832\/revisions\/6834"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistanaffairs.com.pk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6835"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistanaffairs.com.pk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6832"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistanaffairs.com.pk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6832"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistanaffairs.com.pk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6832"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}