KARACHI: An International Monetary Fund (IMF) staff mission has arrived in Pakistan to begin talks on the fourth review under the Extended Fund Facility (EFF) and the third review under the Resilience and Sustainability Facility (RSF), with discussions set to cover the country’s economic performance through June 2026.
The mission is scheduled to begin technical discussions with State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) officials in Karachi on Wednesday. The talks are expected to cover the current account, monetary policy, interest rates and the exchange rate, while SBP officials will brief the IMF team on recent economic developments.
The discussions will also examine Pakistan’s foreign exchange reserves, external financing, investment flows and other developments in the external sector. The government is expected to highlight progress in rebuilding reserves and securing external financing.
The mission will later move to Islamabad for talks with the Finance Ministry, Federal Board of Revenue (FBR), energy authorities and other relevant departments. Current reports indicate that the Islamabad leg is expected to begin on September 28.
The overall discussions are expected to continue for around two weeks and will assess Pakistan’s performance against programme targets and structural benchmarks. Key areas are likely to include tax reforms, fiscal and monetary policies, energy-sector reforms and efforts to contain circular debt in the power and gas sectors.
The review covers the fourth EFF assessment and third RSF review. Under the IMF programme schedule, the fourth EFF review is based on performance through the end of June 2026.
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If the reviews are completed successfully and subsequently approved by the IMF Executive Board, Pakistan could receive about $1 billion under the EFF and around $200 million under the RSF, according to current reports.
Pakistan entered the 37-month, roughly $7 billion EFF programme in September 2024. The IMF approved an initial disbursement of about $1 billion in September 2024, followed by another $1 billion in May 2025. In December 2025, Pakistan received about $1 billion under the EFF and around $200 million under the RSF. The latest review, completed in May 2026, resulted in disbursements of about $1.1 billion under the EFF and $220 million under the RSF.
