Pakistan Finance Minister Shaukat Tarin said on Wednesday that the country is in talks with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to try to ease "tough conditions" on a USD 6 billion loan, "The targets they have given us, that is tough... We have talked to them and they are very sympathetic."

Pakistan did not want to leave the program but had asked the IMF to give "us some space," Tarin told before media. Tarin was appointed last month as the fourth finance minister in just two years of Prime Minister Imran Khan's government, a period in which the country's economy has nosedived.

Pakistan is seeing record numbers of COVID-19 deaths and infections, and so the country is to shut non-essential business and transport for almost two weeks starting on May 5. The aim is to contain the spread of new coronavirus infections during the Eid al-Fitr Muslim festival when hundreds of thousands of people will be offering mass prayers.

Pakistan has raised electricity prices several times since the IMF program began. "We don't have room for tariff hike," Tarin said, adding that the government was going to introduce more tax reforms in the upcoming budget.

"Our people are really sick of rising inflation," he said. The budget for 2021/22 fiscal is just weeks away, and the IMF approved a $500 million disbursement in March for budget support after competing a review of the loan program that had been delayed for over one year.

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