The State Bank of Pakistan finally received the $1.16 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on Wednesday, after months of back and forth and uncertainty on when the tranche would be released.
The State Bank of Pakistan confirmed the development in a tweet late night on Wednesday, and said the IMF loan would help improve the foreign exchange reserves of the country. The SBP also said that this will ensure that the fund inflows promised by other multilateral and bilateral sources will actually be realized.
2/2 This will help improve SBP’s foreign exchange reserves and will also facilitate realization of other planned inflows from multilateral and bilateral sources.
— SBP (@StateBank_Pak) August 31, 2022
As per the Extended Fund Facility (EFF) arrangement which was signed with the IMF in July 2019, Pakistan was set to receive $6bn over a 39-month period. The IMF signed an extension for the program on August 29, which will see it continue until June 2023.
On Monday, an official IMF announcement stated that the executive board had completed the seventh and eighth reviews, leading to the immediate disbursement of the IMF loan to Pakistan. The statement pointed out that the disbursement “brings total purchases (money made available) for budget support under this arrangement to about $3.9 billion.”
