The International Monetary Fund (IMF) and Pakistan attempted to unlock $1.1 billion in funding at the eleventh hour to keep the country from going bankrupt, but the negotiations fell through.

Pakistan's foreign exchange reserves have all but vanished due to the country's escalating economic crisis; it now has just enough dollars to cover one month's worth of imports and is struggling to pay off extremely high levels of external debt.

After 10 days of negotiations, the IMF delegation, which departs Islamabad on Friday, claimed "substantial progress" had been made.

"Virtual discussions will continue in the coming days," the head of the IMF mission Nathan Porter said in a statement.

Although there was no financial lifeboat, both sides tried to paint the meeting positively. Pakistan's finance minister told a news conference the country had been given a detailed roadmap. He talked of "painful but necessary" reforms - the IMF wants to see action and commitments from Pakistan before it commits to lending more money.

In January annual inflation soared to over 27%, the highest it's been in Pakistan since 1975, and there are mounting fears for the economy in a pivotal election year.

This week the rupee sank to a historic low of 275 to the dollar, down from 175 a year ago, making it more expensive for Pakistan to buy and pay for things.

The lack of foreign currency is one of the most pressing of Pakistan's problems.

Factories like Jubilee Textiles in Faisalabad, the industrial heartland of Pakistan, were shut recently - not by the frequent power cuts that have dogged Pakistan for years, but because they couldn't get hold of dollars to pay for the goods they need.

caption,Many factories like this one have been idle across Pakistan in recent weeks

"If we can't import, how can we manufacture? We've already made a loss," its manager Fahim told the BBC, adding that all its 300 workers had been sent home.

Jubilee's printing machines have only just restarted after shutting last month. Piles of white cotton sheets sat in iron tubs, covered by a light coat of brick dust, when the BBC visited, with the only sound the drip, drip of an industrial washer.

Walking through the network of frozen machines, Fahim said the factory had run out of the dyes they imported from China, not because they weren't available, but because they said their bank wouldn't clear the dollars to pay for them for weeks.

According to analysts, the government had been holding the bank's exchange rate artificially high behind the scenes which was contributing to the lack of dollars in the system. At the end of last month, they allowed it to drop, which could help some businesses, but also push prices up.

caption,Imports have been stacking up in ports, including here in Karachi

Businesses and industries across Pakistan said they have had to slow or stop work while they also wait for goods they have imported that are currently stacking up in ports.

In late January, a government minister told the BBC that there were more than 8,000 containers piled up in Karachi's two ports, containing goods from medicine to food. Some of that has started to clear, according to local media reports, but much is still stuck.

Source: BBC