ISLAMABAD - Pakistan is expecting to receive Letter of Comfort (LoC) from International Monetary Fund (IMF) in next couple of months, which would help in getting over $1.5 billion from different institutes including World Bank, Asian Development Bank and others, sources said on Monday.
The international financial institutions including World Bank and Asian Development Bank and others had demanded of Pakistan to provide LoC from IMF in order to get budgetary support. The World Bank and the Asian Development Bank have to give $500 million each to Pakistan as budgetary support. Sources informed The Nation that Finance Minister Dr Abdul Hafeez Shaikh is likely to visit United States next month to attend the annual meetings of World Bank and IMF wherein he would likely ask the IMF regarding LoC. Sources were hopeful that Pakistan is likely to get LoC after the issues settled between Pakistan and USA over the NATO routes restoration. It might be mentioned here that United States had already agreed to give Pakistan $1.2 billion under the head of Coalition Support Fund (CSF). Sources informed that all these amounts would help in mounting foreign exchange reserves, which are on the declining side from last few months.