FYI

 

Next Domino after Sir lanka?

Pakistan seeks to renegotiate IMF loan as food prices surge

"Pakistan’s foreign minister said he hoped the country could renegotiate a deal with the IMF in response to the surge in global food and fuel prices, as mounting political unrest piled pressure on Shehbaz Sharif’s new government.

Officials are in talks with the IMF to resume lending under a $6bn loan programme agreed in 2019 but in limbo since a dispute with the previous government over energy subsidies. Pakistan is struggling with a shortage of foreign reserves that has prompted some analysts to warn that the country is at risk of defaulting on its foreign debts."

“This is a pre-Afghanistan situation deal, this is a pre-Ukraine deal, this is a pre-pandemic deal and pre-current global economic trends,” he told the Financial Times at Davos. “In light of that, it would be important for the government of Pakistan at some point to renegotiate with the IMF.”

Zardari said that the situation in Pakistan, which depends on imports of energy and staples such as wheat, had deteriorated to the point where people were going hungry. “This is already happening,” he said. “This is a daily concern.”

Zardari said he hoped the government would review and scale back the subsidy, which might be a precondition for the resumption of IMF assistance.

(It will lead to political unrest and violence here just as it's going to elsewhere.)