Islamabad: In a major development, Pakistan’s Finance Minister Ishaq Dar has cancelled his visit to the US where he was scheduled to meet the International Monetary Fund (IMF) management for the removal of bottlenecks in the way of the staff-level agreement regarding the revival of the stalled bailout package.
Highly placed sources told The Express Tribune that Dar would not attend the spring meetings of the World Bank-IMF that were taking place from April 10-16 in Washington.
Dar, who is also leader of the house in Senate, was scheduled to land in Washington on Sunday.
“I am not going due to the domestic state of affairs,” the Finance Minister told The Express Tribune on Thursday.
The deepening political uncertainty and developing judicial crisis were said to be the reasons behind the cancellation of the trip to Washington.
Dar had planned to address the financial and political worlds’ concerns regarding the continuity of the government, future economic plans and bridging the once again trust deficit with the multilateral lenders
The sources said that Minister for Economic Affairs Sardar Ayaz Sadiq would also not go to the US due to the prevailing uncertain political conditions.
The Minister for Economic Affairs always represented Pakistan at the World Bank.
Sadiq was considered very close to Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and also handled the political affairs of the allied parties.
(IANS)
