ISLAMABAD: The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) said on Thursday that it had received $1.2 billion from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) after the global money lending agency approved the review of Pakistan’s loan programmes.
In a statement on social media platform X, the central bank said that the Fund’s Executive Board had completed the second review of the Extended Fund Facility (EFF) and the first of the Resilience and Sustainability Facility (RSF) in a meeting held in Washington earlier this week.
“Accordingly, the SBP has received SDR 914 million (equivalent to about $ 1.2 billion) under the EFF and RSF in value [on] Dec 10, 2025 from the IMF,” the central bank said.
“The amount would be reflected in SBP’s foreign exchange reserves for the week ending on Dec 12,” it added.
Earlier this week, the Fund had approved the fresh disbursement of $1.2bn to Pakistan under its dual-track bailout — the 37-month EFF and the climate-focused RSF.
With this tranche, total disbursements to Pakistan under the EFF and RSF now stand at approximately $3.3 billion, supporting both macroeconomic stabilisation and long-term structural reforms for climate resilience.
In a statement released after the meeting of its Executive Board, the IMF highlighted that “Pakistan’s strong programme implementation, despite the recent devastating floods, has maintained stability and improved financing and external conditions”.
It stressed that the country’s policy priorities remain centred on maintaining macroeconomic stability and advancing reforms to strengthen public finances, enhance competition, raise productivity and competitiveness, bolster the social safety net and human capital, reform state-owned enterprises (SOEs), and improve public service provision and energy sector viability.
The board noted that Pakistan’s fiscal performance has been strong, with a primary surplus of 1.3 per cent of GDP achieved in FY25, in line with programme targets. Gross reserves stood at $14.5bn at end-FY25, up from $9.4bn a year earlier, and are projected to continue rebuilding in FY26 and over the medium term. The board also noted that “inflation has increased, reflecting the impact of the floods on food prices, but this is expected to be temporary”.
The statement quoted IMF Deputy Managing Director and Acting Chair Nigel Clarke as saying that “in the face of an uncertain global environment, Pakistan needs to maintain prudent policies to further entrench macroeconomic stability, while accelerating reforms necessary to achieve stronger, private-sector-led, and sustainable medium-term growth”.
He highlighted the importance of “advancing reforms to raise revenues via tax policy simplification and base broadening”, describing it as key to achieving fiscal sustainability and building the fiscal space necessary to boost climate resilience, social protection, human capital development, and public investment.
Clarke also stressed that “reforms in the energy sector are critical to safeguarding its viability and improving Pakistan’s competitiveness”. He noted that timely power tariff adjustments had “helped reduce the stock and flow of circular debt”, while emphasising that “subsequent efforts need to focus on sustainably reducing electricity production and distribution costs and addressing inefficiencies in the power and gas sector”.
Meanwhile, the latest IMF projections for Pakistan suggest that the immediate risk of economic free fall has eased but the country remains locked into a narrow stabilisation path marked by weak growth, heavy debt and limited relief for households.
