New Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb’s most pressing challenge will be securing $6 billion fromt he International Monetary Fund, a major financial publication said on Tuesday.
The report by Bloomberg says that Aurangzeb’s appointment over Ishaq Dar signals Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s intent to get ‘technocrats to help fix the country’.
“We have to carry out a surgical operation as antibiotics will not work at all,” PM Shehbaz said after taking power.
As CEO of JP Morgan’s Global Corporate Bank and then Habib Bank in Pakistan, Bloomberg described Aurangzeb as a ‘seasoned banker’.
Bloomberg also said that Shehbaz has experience in closing deals with IMF, as he had done last year when talks with IMF seemed to be stalled.
Ankur Shukla, an economics analyst at Bloomberg, said that Shehbaz’s manifesto outlines policies aligned with IMF demands which would make it easier for a new bailout package to be secured.
“Sharif has the track record of carrying out reforms and his return as prime minister for a second term increases the chances of securing a new IMF package,” Shukla was quoted as saying.
However, Bloomberg also quoted a Pakistani economist, Nadeem ul Haque, who did not share Shukla’s optimism.
“We have deep, deep problems in the economy and society that need to be fixed. Changing people or the IMF program is just window dressing,” Haque was quoted as saying.
