ISLAMABAD (National Times) – The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has refused to relax its conditions set for Pakistan to complete the ninth review of the $7 billion loan programme, which would release around $1 billion to the cash-strapped South Asian country.

Earlier this month, Finance Minister Ishaq Dar held a meeting with the IMF officials on the sidelines of the Geneva moot where he asked them to review the loan terms in wake of the recent flood devastation.

Sources said the global lander was not ready to budge on its demands as it had asked the Pakistani authorities to meet the requirements before the arrival of the IMF mission for talks.

It would be impossible to complete the IMF programme without achieving the targets, source at the Ministry of Finance said, adding that requests were still being made to IMF to relax the targets.

The IMF has been asked Pakistan to impose new taxes to increase its revenue. However, the government is reluctant to put extra burden on inflation-bitten people.

The ninth review for the release of next tranche of funding has been pending since September, leaving Pakistan desperately reaching out to the friendly countries for external financing.

The IMF approved seventh and eighth reviews together in August last and released more than $1.1 billion.