IMF chief says Pakistan out of economic crisis, calls for further reforms

Chief of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) Christine Lagarde on Monday hailed efforts by the Pakistani government to pull out the country from economic crisis through stabilizing macro-economy and called for further structural reforms to consolidate the achievements.

Lagarde, who is in a two-day visit here, made the remarks during her meeting with Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and said that Pakistan is now in a better fiscal position with gradually increased economic growth, reduced fiscal deficit and continuously declined inflation.

She lauded the prime minister for steering the country out of multiple challenges and achieving macroeconomic stability in a short period of time, according to a government statement.

For his part, Sharif said that the government focuses on increasing the economic growth and then take it to the next level by ensuring the trickle-down effect of the economic gains achieved. "We want to further reduce our expenditures, increase our exports and lower down the cost of production for our industrial and agriculture sectors," the statement quoted the prime minister as saying.

Sharif also said that his government endeavors to address energy shortfall at the earliest and improve the country's infrastructure and communication networks, vowing to eliminate the power shortages from the country by 2018 through setting up power projects in hydropower, coal, LNG.

Meanwhile, during a seminar titled "Emerging Markets in the World Economy" held here on Monday, the IMF managing director also urged the south Asian country to "continue to remain on the path of reforms, as this is the right strategy to ward-off against any future risk," according to a separated government statement.

Given a subdued external environment with global growth remaining too low for too long, Pakistan will need to rely on the strength of its own policies to generate more jobs and improve living conditions, said Lagarde, adding that the main priorities are to reinforce its economic resilience and put in place reforms for higher and more inclusive growth.

She said that the hard work and reforms are starting to pay of as the Morgan Stanley MSCI Index has upgraded Pakistan from a frontier economy to an emerging economy.

(APD)