Pakistan seeks U.S. help to secure ‘lenient treatment’ from IMF

Pakistan's economy is in dire straits; the foreign exchange reserves fell to a critically low level of $2.9 billion a few weeks ago

Cash-strapped Pakistan has decided to seek help from the U.S. to secure “lenient treatment” from the IMF, amid a delay in signing the staff-level agreement with the global lender.

Pakistan is awaiting a much-needed $1.1 billion tranche of funding from the Washington-based International Monetary Fund (IMF).

After failing to convince the global lender, Islamabad is left with no option but to seek help from Washington and its western allies, in order to secure a “lenient treatment” from the IMF for moving towards the staff-level agreement, Geo News reported.

Pakistan's economy is in dire straits. The foreign exchange reserves fell to a critically low level of $2.9 billion a few weeks ago. Pakistan's longtime ally China is the only country that has refinanced $700 million to Islamabad.

The report said that Minister for Finance Ishaq Dar has established contacts with the U.S. diplomatic corps, based in Islamabad, and made requests to help end the lingering stalemate with the help of the U.S. treasury department.

“Without the blessing of Uncle Sam, things may not move in the desired direction, despite Pakistani authorities claiming that they had implemented all prior actions under the advice of the IMF, which were possible for them," sources were quoted as saying by the report.

"Now the IMF is asking to get 200% assurances from the friendly countries and multilateral creditors to fill the financing gap of $6-7 billion on external account till the end of June 2023,” the report added.