LUSAKA, Sept. 23 (Xinhua) -- A team from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) is expected to visit Zambia next month to begin talks on a planned rescue package for the southern African nation, state media reported on Friday.
The IMF plans to provide a monetary aid package of between 1.2 to 1.5 billion U.S. dollars to help revive the Zambian economy.
Minister of Finance Felix Mutati said that the government has since started working on modalities for engagement with the IMF.
"Our strategy is clear. First of all, we need to construct a home-grown recovery program with the key elements that are troubling the economy as a platform for engaging with IMF. The strategy is that we need to secure a stable recovery platform to grow the economy," he is quoted as saying by the Zambia Daily Mail.
The government, he said, plans to take the economy to sustainable levels, adding that reducing the fiscal deficit remains crucial to government plans to revive the economy.
The Finance Ministry announced in April that it would seek an aid program from the IMF that it hoped would be finalized by the end of the year.
