Highlighting corruption as a major challenge for cash-strapped Pakistan, the IMF has said that the country can boost its GDP up to 6.5 per cent in the next five years if it implements a package of governance reforms within the next three to six months.

After holding back for almost three months, the Ministry of Finance released the Governance and Corruption Diagnostic Assessment (GCDA) report on Wednesday to meet the IMF's condition to release it before the meeting of the executive board for approval of the USD 1.2 billion disbursement next month.

In the 186-page report, the International Monetary Fund noted that there was no reliable measure to quantify the scale of corruption in Pakistan, but said that "those costs can be gleaned from the recovery of corruption-related assets''.

''Pak

See Full Page