WASHINGTON: Adviser to Prime Minister on Finance Shaukat Tareen on Monday ruled out the possibility of the country defaulting on its international payment commitments and voiced the confidence to bridge the financing gap of $3 to 4 billion in a year through a range of measures, including additional resources from financial institutions.

Talking to Washington-based Pakistani journalists, Tareen said that Pakistan was expecting $2 to 2.5 billion additional support from the IFIs, including the World Bank, Asian Development Bank and Islamic Development Bank to overcome the financing gap.

The adviser said the government wanted to front load the assistance committed by the World Bank to overcome difficulties in the next 12 months.

He was confident that the country would get additional $1.5 to 2 billion in foreign remittances, if they were channelled through the government sovereign banks.

“We are making multiple arrangements and also have back up plans,” Tareen said, adding that both the budgetary support assistance and the development projects assistance would help.

Pakistan, he said, would also welcome assistance from the Friends of Pakistan meeting in Abu Dhabi next month.

“Our reserve situation is in distress,” he said, but added: “I have no question in my mind that we’ll be able to fulfil those obligations.”

Brushing aside suggestions of the worst case scenarios by some experts, he cited Pakistan’s success in bringing down the fiscal deficit from 7.4 per cent last year to 4.3 per cent this year.

He said the maturity of the Sukuk bonds in January would ease the financial pressure. The trade gap was $20 billion and the country was facing over a billion month current account gap.

ìWe basically are encouraging reserves to meet the day-to-day requirements,î he said. “The Sukuk (bonds) maturity we will meet in a very timely manner, even if the aid is not forthcoming immediately from the Friends of Pakistan initiative,” he added.

“We will have enough resources for an orderly move forward,” he said.

The adviser said the government is also looking at both short-term and long-term measures, trying to correct the imbalances in the macroeconomic indicators.

We are also working on a multi-points simultaneous agenda to provide safety nets to the needy people, to give them skill-based training and provide them health insurance and employment, so that they could come out of poverty, he said.

“We will also increase tax avenues and cut expenditure,” he added.