ISLAMABAD: The federal government is believed to have made a commitment with the IMF to cut fuel and electricity subsidies and impose ban on imports of 30 luxury items to curb fiscal and trade deficits.
According to sources, on the first day of formal talks with the IMF mission led by Nathan Porter in Doha, Finance Minister Miftah Ismail virtually headed the government’s economic team and stated that the new coalition government would stay in office and take tough decisions, enforce further reforms committed in the original fund programme and complete structural benchmarks.
The talks opened on a positive note as the two sides appeared converging to key principles — separating the state’s economic decision-making from politics.
According to sources, the government would be revising fuel and energy prices within days and impose a complete ban, instead of increasing duties, on a total of about 30 luxury items major among them vehicles and mobile phones besides some other no-so-big items to contain imports and external account imbalance. These announcements would be made shortly to progress talks towards the successful completion of the revised programme.
Talks between the government and IMF teams would conclude on May 25, leading to the disbursement of next tranche of about $1 billion.
