Pakistan:Inflation clocks in at 27.55%, IMF seeks consensus for bailout

Inflation has risen to a 48-year high in crisis-hit Pakistan. According to data released on Wednesday by the statistics bureau. In January this year, consumer prices rose 27.6% compared to 13% in the same month of last year. This is the highest year-on-year inflation after May 1975 when the median rate clocked in at 27.77%. inflation in urban and rural areas increased to 24.38pc and 32.26pc year-on-year, respectively. Pakistan's economy is in dire straits, stricken by a balance of payments crisis while it attempts to service high amounts of external debt.The world's fifth-biggest population has less than $3.7 billion in the state bank -- enough to cover just three weeks of imports.

Meanwhile, an IMF delegation arrived in Islamabad to revive negotiations over a stalled bailout package with the government, which has so far held out from meeting the global lender's tough conditions. During the opening round of 10-day-long talks  with  the government officials, IMF officials expressed concerns that the opposition might create hurdles in the way of implementing tough economic decisions, urging the government to meet all the “requirements” for the completion of the much-delayed programme review. Nathan Porter, the visiting mission chief of the IMF, raised the question about the implication of the opposition’s role in difficult decisions that Pakistan would have to take to avoid the default. The IMF mission chief urged the Pakistani authorities that they needed to do a lot to fulfil the programme’s commitments.