- Finance czar says govt making reforms in key areas to boost economy.
- Says recent steps helped stabilise economy, more efforts underway.
- Aurangzeb meets with finance ministers from several countries.
WASHINGTON: Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb said on Saturday that the government is firmly pursuing its reform agenda to stabilise the economy and set the country on a sustainable growth path, hoping that the current International Monetary Fund (IMF) would be Pakistan’s last.
The finance minister made these remarks in a press conference after his week-long trip to the US to participate in the spring meetings of the IMF and the World Bank (WB).
“The government is introducing reforms in areas such as rightsizing the public sector and overhauling the pension system,” Aurangzeb told a group of reporters in Washington.
The finance czar said that he held meetings with finance ministers from several countries on the sidelines of the Spring Meetings.
“The government’s recent steps have helped stabilise the economy, and that efforts are underway to increase private sector participation across various sectors,” the finance minister said.
Aurangzeb expressed hope that Pakistan’s current programme with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) would be its last, signalling the government’s intention to move towards economic self-reliance.
Earlier in the week, Aurangzeb, in an interview with Bloomberg, said Pakistan was looking to buy more goods from the US and remove non-tariff barriers to mitigate President Donald Trump’s high tariffs.
On the sidelines of the 2025 spring meetings of the international lenders in Washington, Aurangzeb held a productive meeting with World Bank Group President Ajay Banga.
During the discussions, the finance minister shared a detailed overview of Pakistan’s macroeconomic turnaround and reaffirmed the government’s unwavering commitment to ensuring sustainable economic stability.
The country’s top economic manager expressed gratitude to the WB for its historical support to Pakistan and commended its leadership in developing a transformative Country Partnership Framework for Pakistan (CPF), a decade-long strategic roadmap centred on measurable impacts and outcomes.
The minister appreciated the WB’s ongoing assistance in crafting a comprehensive implementation strategy and action plan to operationalise the CPF while simultaneously enhancing overall efficiency.
In his meeting with IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva, Aurangzeb thanked the IMF team for reaching a staff-level agreement on the first review under the Extended Fund Facility (EFF) and a new arrangement under the Resilience and Sustainability Facility (RSF).
He reiterated the government of Pakistan’s commitment to maintaining the reform momentum and extended an invitation from PM Shehbaz Sharif for Georgieva to visit the country.
