Imran Khan has said Pakistan will struggle to break out of a cycle of debilitating debt repayments without reform, as the country’s opposition leader and former prime minister warns the debt burden on low- and middle-income economies is becoming unmanageable.

“Whatever we do, when we look ahead, the debt is growing, our economy is slowly shrinking,” Khan, whose Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party is favoured to win national elections this year, told the Financial Times. “From my party’s point of view, we’ve started thinking that we’re stuck.”

Pakistan is in the middle of one of its worst economic crises. Analysts have said the country, which is struggling to revive a roughly $7bn IMF lending programme, is at risk of defaulting, while its foreign reserves have fallen to $4.2bn, less than enough for one month’s worth of imports.