Former finance minister Miftah Ismail asserted that the Washington-based lender is “not interested” in lending money to the cash-strapped country while Pakistan continues to court the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to obtain the much-needed bailout from the international lender.
Now that Sri Lanka has obtained finance from the multilateral lender and Bangladesh is continuing to implement IMF-mandated reforms, Pakistan is the only South Asian nation that has not yet received assistance from the lender.
Pakistan has adopted difficult measures including hiking taxes and energy costs, and allowing its currency to fall to restart a $6.5 billion IMF loan package.
