Pakistan cannot survive without the help of IMF, Shahbaz Sharif comes on his knees for the country facing crisis.

Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said a long-term relief from the International Monetary Fund (MF) was inevitable given the South Asian country’s broken economy. The comments came a day after the IMF agreed to a temporary or staff-level agreement with Islamabad which, if approved by its board, would provide a final tranche of $1.1 billion under the existing $3 billion additional arrangement. Will be distributed. We hope to receive the IMF’s tranche of $1.1 billion next month. he said at a meeting in Islamabad. He said we could not survive without another IMF program.”

He said that even with a long-term, two-to-three-year IMF programme, the $350 billion economy that is under extreme stress with a prolonged balance of payments crisis will require deep structural reforms. The IMF mission, which visited Islamabad for five days on a final review of the stand-by programme, said Pakistani officials have expressed interest in another bailout. The stand-by arrangement expires on April 11. The lender has already said it will prepare a medium-term program if Islamabad applies for it.

The government has not officially disclosed the size of additional funds sought under the long-term bailout. Bloomberg had reported in February that Pakistan planned to ask for a loan of at least $6 billion. Before the stand-by arrangement, Pakistan had to meet IMF conditions, including revising its budget and raising interest rates, as well as generating revenue through higher taxes and hikes in electricity and gas prices.