PM Khan vows to steady Pakistan as bailout looms

Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan yesterday vowed to steer the country out of a looming balance-of-payments crisis, days after his young government announced it would seek a fresh IMF bailout deal. The cricketer-turned-premier said Pakistan needs $10- 12 billion, which he dismissed as “not a major issue” in televised comments. “We will get out of this. I will take (the country) out of this,” he added. “We have two options: one, we can go to friendly countries and ask them to bridge this gap; and second, that we go to the IMF,” he said, adding that the government has decided to do “both”.

Finance minister Asad Umar, who is attending the fund’s annual meeting in Bali this week, announced late Monday that the government had decided to begin talks with the IMF for a “stabilisation recovery programme”. Pakistan has gone to the IMF multiple times since the late 1980s. The last time was in 2013, when Islamabad got a $6.6 billion loan to tackle a similar crisis. Khan also announced that his govt will begin a massive low-cost housing scheme with the aim of building five million homes in five years.