IMF gives Pakistan $2.75 bln in COVID-19 support funds, to shore up foreign reserves

Daily wage labourers sit along the roadside as they wait to be hired for work in Karachi, Pakistan, on June 11, 2021. (AFP/File)

• Pakistan’s foreign reserves are under pressure from rise in current account deficit and falling remittances
• IMF has also thanked Pakistan for swiftly evacuating its staff members and their families from Afghanistan 

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan on Tuesday received $2.75 billion from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) under a Special Drawing Rights (SDR) program to support low-income countries hit by the coronavirus, its central bank said.
The funds, part of a $650 billion global program, will shore up Pakistan’s foreign reserves, under pressure from a rise in the current account deficit and falling remittances from workers based abroad.
Pakistan entered a $6 billion IMF program in 2019, a sixth review of which has been pending since March.
Pakistan has reported more than 1.1 million coronavirus cases and more than 25,000 pandemic-related deaths.
The IMF on Tuesday also thanked Pakistan for swiftly evacuating its staff members and their families from Afghanistan after the fall of Kabul earlier this month.
IMF chief Kristalina Georgieva expressed her gratitude to Prime Minister Imran Khan in a Twitter post, saying his administration had helped her colleagues in “very difficult circumstances.”
“Pakistan’s efforts at the highest levels were absolutely critical to the safe and swift evacuation of IMF staff and their families from Afghanistan,” she said.
Thousands of diplomats and foreign workers were desperate to fly out of Afghanistan after the Taliban victoriously entered Kabul about 20 years after their government was toppled by invading American forces.
Among the people who wanted to leave the war-battered country were staff members of international financial institutions like the IMF and the World Bank who were evacuated by Pakistani authorities.
According to Pakistan’s information minister Chaudhry Fawad Hussain, the country has evacuated 1,600 people from Kabul, including diplomats, journalists and other foreign nationals, since the fall of Kabul on August 15.
“I especially appreciate the instrumental roles played by Pakistan’s ministers of Foreign Affairs, Finance, and Defense, as well as State Bank of Pakistan Governor [Reza] Baqir,” the IMF chief said in a letter addressed to the Pakistani prime minister.
She added that Pakistan’s help amid “immensely difficult and complex circumstances” was absolutely critical to the successful evacuation of IMF employees.
“Thank you very much, from the bottom of my heart. We are grateful for the partnership between Pakistan and the Fund and look forward to continuing our cooperation,” she added.
Pakistan’s foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi said in a statement on Monday his country was fully facilitating several European states, international organizations and media agencies by evacuating their nationals and employees as a responsible member of the world community.
The country’s interior minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed also announced that Pakistan was issuing one-month visas-on-arrival to all foreigners traveling from Kabul to Islamabad.