Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) mission met for the first time on Tuesday under the direction of IMF Mission Chief Nathan Porter.
The IMF team visited the finance ministry, where Aurangzeb greeted the group, according to a statement issued by the Finance Division.
Without going into specifics, the Finance Division statement said that senior officials from the Ministry of Finance attended the meeting, including Governor Jameel Ahmad of the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP), Chairman Rashid Mehmood Langrial of the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR), and Minister of State for Finance Ali Pervaiz Malik.
In order to examine current events and the performance of the Extended Fund Facility (EFF) program thus far, the IMF group landed in Pakistan on Monday for a staff visit. The first evaluation under the $7 billion EFF, which won’t happen before the first quarter of 2025, does not include this goal.
According to prior reports, the FBR addressed the IMF team on Monday about the Tajir Dost Scheme, the revenue collection status for the fiscal year 2024–25, and the plan to close the anticipated Rs230 billion gap in the current fiscal year’s second quarter (October–December).
The FBR chairman discussed both immediate and long-term ways to close the projected deficit of more than Rs230 billion for the second quarter (October–December) of 2024–2025.
In October 2024, the FBR collected Rs877 billion, falling short of the Rs103 billion target of Rs980 billion. In the first four months of 2024–2025, the FBR collected Rs3,440 billion, which is Rs196 billion less than the Rs3,636 billion target set for July–October of the current fiscal year.
According to reports, a major item on the agenda for the IMF-Pakistan talks would be efforts to reduce spending and increase revenue collection.
