Pakistan will request at least a three-year-long program from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to implement essential structural reforms, Finance Minister Muhammed Aurangzeb said on Monday. With the final $1.1 billion tranche of the current program likely to be approved later this month, Aurangzeb said Pakistan has initiated discussions with the IMF over a new multi-billion dollar loan agreement to support its economic reform program. He expects discussions on this matter to begin around the second or third week of May. 'The market confidence, the market sentiment is in much, much better shape this fiscal year. It's really for that purpose that, during this week, we have initiated the discussion with the Fund to get into a larger and extended program,' he added. An IMF spokesperson told Agence France Presse that the Fund is 'currently focused on the completion of the current Stand-by Agreement program,' referring to the ongoing nine-month program scheduled for completion shortly. 'The new government has expressed interest in a new program, and Fund staff stands ready to engage in initial discussions on a successor program,' the spokesperson added. During his visit to Washington, Aurangzeb will also attend the spring meetings organized by the IMF and World Bank, which kick off in earnest Tuesday, with two clear objectives: to help countries combat climate change and to assist the world's most indebted nations. US and China 'From our perspective, it has to be an and-and discussion,' Aurangzeb said when asked how the coalition government plans to conduct its trading relationships with the world's two largest economies. '[The] US is our largest trading partner, and it has always supported us, always helped us in terms of the investments,' he said. 'So that is always going to be a very, very critical relationship for Pakistan.' 'On the other side, a lot of investment, especially in infrastructure, came through CPEC,' he said, referring to the roughly 1,860-mile long China-Pakistan Economic Corridor desig ned to give China access to the Arabian Sea. Aurangzeb said there was an 'very good opportunity' for Pakistan to play a similar role in the trade war as countries like Vietnam, which has been able to dramatically boost its exports to the US following the imposition of tariffs on some Chinese goods. 'We have already a few examples of that already working,' he said. 'But what we need to do is to scale it up.' Privatization As part of the structural reform program agreed to by the previous government, Pakistan is in the middle of a privatization drive to sell off its poorly performing state-owned enterprises (SOEs). The first SOE on the list is Pakistan International Airlines, the country's flag carrier. 'We will get to know in the next month or so with respect to interest from prospective bidders,' Aurangzeb said. 'We desire to go through with that privatization and take it through the finishing line by the end of June,' he added. If the PIA privatization goes well for the government, other companies co uld soon follow. 'We're creating an entire pipeline,' he said, adding, 'Over the next couple of years we want to really accelerate that.' Source: Pro Pakistani