Eleventh-hour negotiations between Pakistan and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) have failed to unlock $1.1 billion in crucial funds aimed at preventing the cash-strapped country from going bankrupt.<\/p>\n
A deepening economic crisis has all but emptied Pakistan’s foreign exchange reserves, leaving it barely enough dollars to cover a month of imports and it is struggling to service sky-high levels of foreign debt, the BBC reported.<\/p>\n
The IMF team, which leaves Islamabad on Friday, said “considerable progress” had been made after 10 days of talks.<\/p>\n
“Virtual discussions will continue in the coming days,” the head of the IMF mission Nathan Porter said in a statement.<\/p>\n
In January, annual inflation soared to over 27 per cent — the highest in Pakistan since 1975 — and there are mounting fears for the economy in a pivotal election year.<\/p>\n
This week, the Pakistani rupee (PKR) sank to a historic low of 275 to the dollar, down from 175 a year ago, making it more expensive for the nation to buy and pay for things, the BBC reported.<\/p>\n
The lack of foreign currency is one of the most pressing of Pakistan’s problems.<\/p>\n
Businesses and industries across Pakistan said they have had to slow or stop work while they also wait for goods they have imported that are currently stacking up in ports.<\/p>\n
In late January, a government minister told the BBC that there were more than 8,000 containers piled up in Karachi’s two ports, containing goods from medicine to food.<\/p>\n
Some of that has started to clear, according to local media reports, but much is still stuck.<\/p>\n
Pakistan, like many countries, is suffering as a result of the coronavirus pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, following which global fuel prices have soared.<\/p>\n
Pakistan relies heavily on imported fossil fuels and importing food has also become more expensive.<\/p>\n
If the PKR depreciates, fuel costs more, with knock-on effects for goods that are transported or manufactured. The government recently increased fuel prices by over 13 per cent but says it’s not planning any more, reports the BBC.<\/p>\n
Add to this the cost of last year’s floods, which the UN says caused damage of more than $16 billion. Huge areas of Pakistan were submerged, destroying farmland and disrupting its ability to produce food.<\/p>\n
Basics like wheat and onion have skyrocketed in price.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Eleventh-hour negotiations between Pakistan and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) have failed to unlock $1.1 billion in crucial funds aimed at preventing the cash-strapped country from going bankrupt. A deepening economic crisis has all but emptied Pakistan’s foreign exchange reserves, leaving it barely enough dollars to cover a month of imports and it is struggling […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23246,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23245","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-main-stories","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.testctsl.in\/indiafirstepaper\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23245","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.testctsl.in\/indiafirstepaper\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.testctsl.in\/indiafirstepaper\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.testctsl.in\/indiafirstepaper\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.testctsl.in\/indiafirstepaper\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23245"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/demo.testctsl.in\/indiafirstepaper\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23245\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23247,"href":"https:\/\/demo.testctsl.in\/indiafirstepaper\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23245\/revisions\/23247"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.testctsl.in\/indiafirstepaper\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23246"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.testctsl.in\/indiafirstepaper\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23245"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.testctsl.in\/indiafirstepaper\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23245"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.testctsl.in\/indiafirstepaper\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23245"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}