Washington / Islamabad (dpa) - The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has granted Pakistan an emergency loan of almost 1.4 billion US dollars in the fight against the corona crisis, the IMF said in Washington With.
The outbreak of Covid-19 has a significant impact on the Pakistani economy, the release said. With the financial aid, the South Asian country could spend more money on health and also relieve donor countries of development aid.
Dozens of countries have already applied to the IMF for emergency loans because of the corona crisis. The UN organization, based in Washington, presented its latest economic forecast on Tuesday. Because of the corona virus pandemic, the global economy will shrink dramatically this year. The IMF is facing the worst global recession in almost a hundred years. The Pakistani economy is suffering from high budget deficits, double-digit inflation and low tax revenues.
Prime Minister Imran Khan had already announced a national financial package of 1.2 trillion Pakistani rupees (around 6.6 billion euros) at the end of March. Economic researchers had forecast mass unemployment for the country with more than 200 million inhabitants due to the nationwide curfews. More than 18 million people, mostly day laborers, could lose their jobs as a result of Corona. Pakistan had therefore already decided to relax the corona measures on Tuesday.
Communication from the IMF