“The Executive Board of the International Monetary Fund completed the 1st review and allows for an immediate disbursement of SDR 528 million (around US$ 700 million) bringing the total disbursements under the SBA to US$ 1.9 billion,” the ministry said in a post on X.

On November 15, the IMF staff and Pakistan reached a staff-level agreement on the first review under the SBA.

The executive board completed the first review of Pakistan’s economic reform program supported by IMF’s SBA on Thursday.

Earlier in the day, Pakistan’s sovereign international dollar bonds rose ahead of a meeting of the IMF executive board on the first review on the country’s $3 billion programme.

The bonds rose by up to 1.77 cents by 0857 GMT, with the 2026 bonds rising the most to 70.79 cents on the dollar, according to Tradeweb data.

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Why has the IMF been so strict on Pakistan this time?

An IMF team, led by Nathan Porter, visited Islamabad from November 2 to 15, 2023, to hold discussions on the first review of Pakistan’s economic programme supported by SBA.

In the staff-level agreement, Pakistan has vowed to leave the exchange rate on the market forces.

As per the IMF, Pakistan also prioritised bringing in further reforms to reduce costs in the energy sector and restore its viability.

The government had vowed to pursue the privatization of state-owned enterprises. According to the Fund, the authorities will ensure public access to asset declarations from Cabinet members to further strengthen governance and a task force, with participation from independent experts, will complete a comprehensive review of the anticorruption framework.