Painful decisions ahead, warns Asad on return from Bali.
Painful decisions ahead, warns Asad on return from Bali. IMF mission due on Nov 7, CPEC not at blame for debt crisis. By khaleeq Kiani ISLAMABAD: Finance minister Asad Umar on Saturday said the government will have to take difficult decisions that would be painful for people but necessary under international commitments to get out of the current severe economic situation. Speaking at a nes conference after his return form Indonesia where he formally applied for the IMF bailout, the minister rebutted the narrative in the Trump administration that the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) was responsible for Pakistan's debt problems and the need for IMF bailout and said talks with Saudi Arabia for oil supplies on deferred payments were in progress. He said the government would have to make a stop-gap arrangement for external financial resources to support foreign exchange reserves until the IMF programme was finalized. An exercise for short-term borrowing was in the proc