The paper said Saturday the Pakistan-IMF Article IV date that some outlets had pegged for early May was not on the Fund's published calendar. Sunday confirms it. The IMF's most recent Pakistan releases are the February 25–March 2 mission, the March 11 end-of-mission statement, and the March 27 staff-level agreement on the third review of the 37-month Extended Fund Facility and the second review of the 28-month Resilience and Sustainability Facility. [1] The last completed Article IV consultation was September 25, 2024. [2] No May 5 review, board meeting, or Article IV is on the IMF's public schedule for Pakistan.

The correction matters because the Pakistani fuel bill is real and is due. The rupee printed sub-95 against the dollar this week; the country's import cover sits below three months on most analyst readings; and the Hormuz blockade has added meaningful basis points to every shipment of Saudi crude that lands at Karachi. The Sunday OPEC+ +188 kbpd add does not change Pakistan's near-term math — the war premium is in the price, regardless of cartel rhetoric.

The operative IMF date is the executive board's review of the staff-level agreement, which historically runs four-to-six weeks behind the staff-level milestone. That places the next public IMF action on Pakistan in late April to mid-May — but as a board calendar item, not as an Article IV. [1] The financial press has conflated the two. The paper's position is that Pakistan stays on standing watch — rupee, fuel bill, program-review track — but May 5 is not a datapoint, and the calendar correction matters because the war makes every fabricated deadline a market event.

-- PRIYA SHARMA, Delhi