Pakistan and the International Monetary Fund have scheduled a meeting on January 11 2024, to approve the Staff-Level Agreement (SLA) for the first review of the $3bn Stand-By Arrangement (SBA).
The IMF executive board approved the nine-month arrangement in June with Pakistan to allow an immediate disbursement of $1.2bn for the support of the economic stabilisation programme. The rest was phased over the duration of the programme subject to two quarterly reviews).
Earlier, on November 15 2023, IMF and Pakistan reached an SLA for the disbursement of Special Drawing Rights (SDR) 528 million. The SDR valued at around $700m. Hence, the total disbursements under the $3bn SBA equalled $1.9bn.
The IMF board was expected to have a meeting scheduled on December 07 2023. However, the IMF board members couldn’t reach a date because of prior scheduled consultations and programme reviews in 12 countries till December 14. The last week of December and the first week of January were already off the table due to Christmas and New Year holidays.