Islamabad: The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has called its executive board meeting on April 16 to consider disbursement of an extra loan worth $1.4 billion to Pakistan after prime minister Imran Khan, once again, opened up his arms before the global financial institutions to boost the country’s foreign exchange reserves and extend budgetary support in the wake of the economic slowdown due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Addressing the global community and financial institutions on Sunday in context of dealing with this unprecedented challenge posed by the coronavirus, Khan said that in developing countries, apart from containing the virus and dealing with the economic crisis, the biggest worry is people dying of hunger as a result of the lockdown.
“While the United States and Germany can come up with a relief package of 2.2 trillion dollars and 1 trillion euros respectively, to give an example of Pakistan, with a population of 220 million people, so far the maximum stimulus we could afford is 8 billion dollars. This is the story of all those countries which are suffering from really high debt to GDP ratios,” he said further.
