IMF has six days to save Pakistan from financial ruin!
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - October 28,
2008 - Frank-Walter Steinmeier, Germany’s Foreign Minister, warned on Tuesday
that the world had less than a week to prevent a full-blown financial crisis in
Pakistan, as Islamabad said it expected to strike a preliminary agreement with
the International Monetary Fund in a day or two.
Speaking in Islamabad, Mr. Steinmeier called on the IMF to save the nuclear-armed country from bankruptcy by extending an “appropriate loan”.
“I hope the decision will be taken soon. It won’t help to have it in six months, or six weeks. Rather, we need it in the coming six days,” he said after meeting Pakistan’s president Asif Ali Zardari and foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi.
Shortly after he made his remarks, a Pakistani official told the Financial Times that negotiations with the IMF were “in the final stages” and that the government expected agreement on a letter of intent with the Fund “within one or two days”.
The official said that a letter of intent would be followed by a formal request to the IMF’s board for funding, with an agreement likely to be finalized by mid-November.
“It is a precarious situation which has to be tackled,” said Abid Hasan, former adviser on Pakistan to the World Bank, referring to the need for international financial assistance. “Time is running out”.
