Tax Agriculture or Forget the Loan: IMF Chief of Mission in an Exclusive Interview
Interview of Nathan Porter, IMF Chief of Mission for Pakistan, for Nikkei Asia
Dear Readers,
Earlier this week, I interviewed Nathan Porter, IMF’s Chief of Mission for Pakistan. He rarely gives interviews to journalists, so it was a great success for me as a journalist.
During the interview, we talked about Pakistan’s history with the IMF and what the IMF expects from Pakistan in the latest program of $7 billion, which is yet to be completely finalized. The broad discussion with Mr. Porter was included in the Big Story I produced for Nikkei Asia on IMF this Wednesday.
On Friday, my complete interview with Mr. Porter was published on Nikkei Asia. You can read the full interview here. Moreover, you can also read an Urdu translation of the interview here.
The main point Porter made in the interview was that the proposed tax on agriculture is a core component of the IMF program. He said that if Pakistan did not live up to its commitment to tax agriculture then Pakistan’s program with the IMF would be at risk.
Furthermore, He advised against establishing new power plants due to the ballooning capacity charges bill. This implies that the 300 MW Power Plant in Gwadar, planned for port under CPEC, also can not be built. This will negatively affect the capacity of the government to address the energy needs of Gwadar Port in the future.
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Have a good weekend.
Regards,
Adnan Aamir