Pakistan's Finance Minister Dr Shamshad Akhtar attended the Bretton Woods Institutions meetings in Morocco today, engaging with second-tier officials from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank, despite failing to secure one-on-one meetings with their respective leaders. The Pakistani delegation, which includes officials from the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) and the World Bank, is seeking to address a $4.5 billion financing gap for this fiscal year.
The World Bank plans to provide over $2.1 billion in loans to Pakistan, including up to $1.6 billion in project loans and a $350 million budget support loan, according to World Bank Country Head Najy Benhassine. Additionally, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) has pledged a $250 million budget support loan to Pakistan.
Dr Akhtar's agenda also includes meetings with representatives from Lazard (NYSE:LAZ), Standard Chartered (OTC:SCBFF) Bank, and Deutsche Bank. The latter, according to InvestingPro Tips, has been a prominent player in the Capital Markets industry and has seen accelerating revenue growth. It also has been consistently increasing its earnings per share, making it a potentially valuable partner for Pakistan in addressing its financing gap. Deutsche Bank's strong financial performance, as indicated by its Market Cap (Adjusted) of 21660.65M USD and Revenue of 29300.52M USD, as per InvestingPro Data, further underscores its potential role in these discussions.
Dr Akhtar will also meet officials from the Islamic Development Bank, Asian Development Bank, and AIIB. Discussions with finance ministers of Saudi Arabia and Iran are scheduled as well. Moreover, she will be focusing on the RISE-II loan with Standard Chartered Bank, which according to InvestingPro Tips, has been showing strong earnings that should allow management to continue dividend payments, and has raised its dividend for 3 consecutive years. This information, coupled with its low P/E ratio relative to near-term earnings growth and a strong free cash flow yield, as suggested by InvestingPro Data, could be of interest to the Pakistani delegation.
Meanwhile, at the same summit, Indian Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman was praised by her French counterpart Bruno Le Maire for India's successful G20 Presidency and the New Delhi Leaders Declaration. Sitharaman underscored the importance of multilateralism via G20 in tackling global challenges such as the COVID-19 pandemic, escalating inflation, and recent wars. She also held discussions on Digital Public Infrastructure, development partnerships, trade, and investment with representatives from Comoros and Morocco.
In other news from the IMF-World Bank Annual Meetings, Tibor Toth, Hungarian State Secretary for Macroeconomic and International Affairs, stated that the IMF's latest forecast aligns with Hungary's future economic strategies. The IMF anticipates Hungary to lead GDP growth among V4 countries in 2024 with a rate of 3.1 percent, significantly surpassing the projected EU growth rate. The IMF also expects a decline in Hungary's Consumer Price Index (CPI) to single digits this year, with an end-year projection above 8 percent and an average annual inflation of 6.6 percent in 2024.
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