ISLAMABAD: The Senate Standing Committee on Finance and Revenue will discuss the State Bank of Pakistan (Amendment) Bill, 2021 on Thursday.

The SBP bill was earlier passed by the National Assembly on January 14. The bill was introduced in the upper house of the Parliament by Senator Mohsin Aziz. The Senate chairman referred the bill to the Senate committee on Monday.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) executive board will take up Pakistan case for the $6 billion extended fund facility (EFF) programme on February 2. The IMF website, which lists its executive board calendar, showed Pakistan’s discussion would be taken up on February 2 instead of January 28. Earlier, the IMF had postponed the review on January 12 this year on the request of Finance Minister Shaukat Tarin as the government could not meet two prior conditions for the review, which include parliament’s approval of SBP Amendment Bill, 2021, and Finance Supplementary Bill, 2021.

The government had managed to pass the finance bill from both houses of the parliament in the third week of January.