Pakistan pays $14bn in external debt servicing

November 12, 2026 (MLN): Pakistan paid $14.44bn on external public debt servicing during July-June 2025-26 against Foreign Economic Assistance (FEA) disbursements of $16.16bn, according to the Ministry of Economic Affairs’ annual report on Foreign Economic Assistance released on Wednesday.

The servicing bill comprised $11.20bn in principal repayments and $3.24bn in interest payments. Net transfers to the government’s external public debt were positive at $4.42bn, indicating an increase in the external public debt stock.

Total external public debt stood at $98.08bn as of June 30, 2026, of which $59.93bn was owed to multilateral and bilateral development partners.

Actual disbursements were 81pc of the $19.92bn annual target. Time deposits came in at $3bn against $9bn budgeted, while commercial banks provided $1.90bn against $3.10bn. NPC brought in $3.05bn against $609m budgeted, and bonds $1bn against $400m.

By mode, $9.38bn was obtained for budgetary support/balance of payments to address fiscal imbalances, strengthen foreign exchange reserves and stabilize the exchange rate. Project financing disbursements stood at $3.44bn, commodity financing at $2.02bn and programme financing at $1.33bn.

Within budgetary support, NPC accounted for 33pc ($3.05bn), followed closely by time deposits at 32pc ($3bn). Foreign commercial banks and bonds jointly contributed 31pc, while the IMF accounted for 4pc ($421m).

The World Bank, ADB and IsDB were the largest multilateral contributors, disbursing $2.03bn (40pc of multilateral disbursements), $1.77bn (35pc) and $1.09bn (22pc), respectively. On the bilateral side, Saudi Arabia disbursed the most at $1.01bn, followed by China at $501m.

Among project financing disbursements, energy and power received the largest share at $1.15bn, followed by environment, climate and resilience at $691m, water at $300m, transport and communication at $271m and education at $235m.

On new commitments, the government signed financing agreements worth $8.95bn in FY26, of which $6.81bn was for federal and $2.14bn for provincial projects and programmes. These comprised $5.88bn from multilateral partners, $359m from bilateral partners, $1.70bn from commercial banks and $1.01bn from Euro and Panda bonds.

By mode, $3.81bn (42pc) was for budgetary support/BoP, $2.77bn (31pc) for project financing, $1.41bn (16pc) for programme financing and $967m (11pc) for commodity financing from the International Islamic Trade Finance Corporation.

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