Pakistan inches closer to IMF bailout package amid economic concerns

Pakistan has reached an "agreement in principle" with IMF over a bailout package, the country's state minister for revenue said on Monday after the lending body announced the arrival of its staff mission in Islamabad later this month. A mission team from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) will travel to Pakistan this month, the IMF said in a statement.

Hammad Azhar, the minister, said the staff mission's visit was just aimed at finalising technical details. "An agreement in principle has been reached with IMF," he announced in a tweet, hours after Pakistan's Finance Minister Asad Umar returned home from Washington where he had meetings with the IMF and World Bank.

Pakistan was last year expected to sign up for its 13th IMF bailout programme since the late 1980s but talks ground to a halt, with Pakistani officials saying the conditions attached to the proposed IMF loans could hurt economic growth.