ISLAMABAD: The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has approved modifications in the targets on international reserves and budget deficit for the end of June by allowing Islamabad to utilise Eurobond worth $2bn instead of Fund’s earlier projection of $500m on this account, official sources said yesterday.
This approval of the IMF’s Executive Board finally paved the way for the release of fourth tranche of $555m for Pakistan.
“Yes, the IMF has allowed Pakistan to adjust $2bn generated through Eurobond, which was earlier envisaged at $500m. It helped Islamabad at restricting its budget deficit at 5.8 percent of GDP for the last fiscal year ended June 30,” the officials said.
When contacted, Adviser to the Finance Ministry Rana Assad Amin, who is also the official spokesman, said that the government has achieved its envisaged budget deficit target of 5.8 percent of GDP for the fiscal year 2013-14. He said that the official figures were still coming so the matching of overall revenues and expenditures will be carried out after a couple of weeks.
In the wake of the FBR’s efforts to inch towards its desired target, better expenditures management and improved performance on non-tax revenue collection enabled the government to achieve the desired budget deficit target for the last fiscal year that ended June 30.
On the revenue collection side, the FBR has collected Rs2,266bn in the last financial year against the revised tax collection target of Rs2,275bn till June 30.
“We expect that the FBR’s collection will cross to Rs2,270bn till finalising the revenue figures provided the reconciliation with the SBP and AGPR data,” FBR’s Member IRS and Spokesman Shahid Hussain Asad said.
Internews
