The Internation Monetary Fund has forecasted improvement in Pakistan’s key economic indicators after its executive board approved a stand-by arrangement for Pakistan.

In keeping with the government’s optimism about improvement in the economy, IMF said that the next year would increase growth rate while decreasing unemployment and inflation rates in the country.

The IMF said that Pakistan’s GDP is projected to grow by 2.5% in the year 2023-24. However, it added that the rate of grown for the year 2022-23 was -0.5% instead of +0.3% as claimed by the government

The Fund’s statement also said that unemployment in Pakistan had stood at 8.5% over the last fiscal year which was expected to fall slightly to 8% in 2023-24.

IMF projected a similar trend for inflation in the next year and said it would fall on average rate from 29.6% to 25.9%. By the end of the fiscal year, the IMF said, inflation would drop to 16%.

The budget deficit is also set to decrease slightly from 7.6% to 7.5%.

However, the IMF added that government expenditure would increase from 18.9% to 19.8% of the GDP.

It also said that foreign investment would decrease from 0.4% to 0.2% of the GDP.