UK-based consultant being hired to prepare stabilisation programme

ISLAMABAD: The government is hiring the services of a UK-based international consultant for the preparation of Home-Grown Stabilisation Programme just ahead of parleys with the IMF for clinching a medium-term bailout package and unveiling the next budget for 2024-25.

Amid severe macroeconomic challenges, the Shehbaz Sharif-led government started deliberations with the international economist/consultant Stefan Dercon for preparing the Stabilisation Programme. “One session has been held virtually in the presence of whole economic team whereby policymakers deliberated upon different economic issues. Now Stefan Dercon has been assigned to come up with a prescription to build an economic narrative titled ‘Home Grown: Stabilisation Programme’ aimed at reviving growth,” top official sources confirmed while talking to The News here on Thursday.

It was learnt that UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) might probably finance the project for preparing the stabilization programme. But according to sources neither the British High Commission nor the Ministry of Finance has so far communicated any request to finance such a study from the FCDO resources earmarked for Pakistan.

Stefan is a professor of economic policy at the University of Oxford who also served as chief economist of the Department of International Development, and development policy adviser to successive UK foreign secretaries. He has written an article on Pakistan’s economy which was shared with Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif. In his article published in Pakistan, Dercon has said that Pakistan’s new government has a choice. Either it continues with business as usual, seeking external resources to keep the status quo, or it builds its own credible reform path, making it genuinely worthy of investment by external finance. In that way, it can build a legacy by prioritising development, a legacy that creates a bright economic future for Pakistan.

The budget making process has also begun and the Ministry of Finance is communicating the Indicative Budget Ceiling (IBC) to the tune of Rs500 billion for the Public Sector Development Programme. The Planning Ministry wants PSDP of over Rs 700-800 billion. It is hoped that the Annual Plan Coordination Committee will hold its meeting by the end of ongoing month. The Ministry of Finance plans to present the next budget on June 7, 2024 but there is a clash of dates because of PM’s upcoming visit to China.

According to Finance Ministry’s announcement on Thursday, Federal Minister for Finance & Revenue Senator Muhammad Aurangzeb met with the Chief Economist in FCDO Adnan Qadir Khan, accompanied by British High Commissioner Jane Marriot.

Prof. Adnan Qadir Khan informed the Minister that the FCDO has successfully concluded work on several pivotal initiatives and extended support for a domestically driven reform programme to foster economic growth and sustainability in Pakistan. British High Commissioner Jane Marriott expressed the British government’s commitment to support Pakistan in its socio-economic development endeavors and expressed confidence in the potential for deeper collaboration in the future.