Zambia’s Finance Permanent Secretary said on Tuesday that the southern Africa nation will resume talks with the International Monetary Fund over an aid programme in October and hopes to get IMF board approval by the end of the year.

“The engagement with the fund is pretty advanced. We have addressed most of the structural issues and agreed to them,” Mukuli Chikuba said during the launch of a mid-year economic report.

“The work that is remaining with the IMF includes spending plans for the rest of 2017. We will resume engagement with the fund in October and hope to get board approval by December.”