Zimbabwe optimistic IMF will warmly receive its report

Zimbabwe on Friday expressed optimism that its economic report will be well received by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) Executive Board.

The IMF was in Zimbabwe in February this year to hold discussions on the 2016 Article IV consultations and to conduct the third and final review of a 15-month Staff-Monitored Programme (SMP) approved in October 2014.

A report from this mission will be presented to the IMF Executive Board for discussion on May 2.

At the end of its two-week mission last month, the IMF team issued a statement saying Zimbabwean authorities had met all quantitative targets and structural benchmarks under the SMP which the country embarked on in 2014 to put its economy on a firm recovery path.

The approval of the SMP and Article IV consultations report by the IMF executive board would enhance chances for Zimbabwe to proceed with clearing its 1.8 billion U.S. dollars arrears to multilateral creditors and hopefully unlock new financing from the creditors to rebuild its ailing economy.

Zimbabwe this year intends to clear a combined 1.8 billion dollars arrears to the IMF, World Bank and the African Development Bank in order to unlock fresh funding from the key institutions which suspended loans to the country at the turn of the century after it started defaulting.

Finance Minister Patrick Chinamasa told a press conference Friday that Zimbabwe was optimistic that the IMF would approve Zimbabwe's report.

"Their report is positive and we cannot envisage a situation where the board will query the mission with respect to their report and so we are quite optimistic that the report will be received well by the board," Chinamasa said.

He said the three multilateral creditors were expected to meet in the last quarter of the year to consider Zimbabwe's debt clearance plan.

In the meantime, the country would be preparing a financing program in anticipation of new funding from the creditors once it clears its arrears, the minister said.