IslamicFinance.de

The federal government of Pakistan has decided to initiate a comprehensive plan for the promotion of Islamic banking in the country. The National Assembly Standing Committee on Finance chaired by Asad Umar announced that the State Bank of Pakistan was in the process of formulating a seven-year plan and a comprehensive framework in this regard will be introduced within two months. The SBP officials gave a briefing to the committee about the Eradication of Riba Act, 2019. The chairman advised the standing committee on finance to expedite the work on the bill and constituted a sub-committee, headed by MNA Raza Nasrullah.

Pakistan plans to borrow over $4 billion from the Islamic Development Bank to bolster the country's low level of foreign currency reserves. A senior advisor in Islamabad said the paperwork is all in place. Finance minister-in-waiting Asad Umar has previously said that Pakistan must decide by the end of September if it would go to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to bail out its economy. He reiterated his stance that Pakistan was examining other options as well as the IMF, including loans from friendly countries or remittances from overseas Pakistanis.

Pakistan is considering to launch dollar-denominated bond and Sukuk bond to tap a favorable response from expatriates in order to tackle the looming economic crisis. Finance minister Asad Umar said the coming government will have to take tough decisions in the first six weeks after coming into power. Asad promised to grant independence to the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics in order to get reliable official data on various sectors of the economy. He pledged to take action on it in the first 100 days of government. The situation has touched such an alarming position as the current account deficit used to be in the range of $2 billion on per annum basis, which now peaked to $2 billion on monthly basis.