Chinese financing exceeds finance ministry's overall expectation for FY19

February 28, 2019 (MLN): Pakistan has accumulated another $381 million in January 2019, in the name of foreign economic assistance, bringing the total disbursement during the July-January FY19 period to a total of $2.7 billion.

The aforementioned deductions were made after a look at the monthly report on external financing issued by the Economic Affairs Division.

Meanwhile, the budget estimate for FY19 is $9.7 billion.

As compared to revised figures for the corresponding period of last year ($6.88 billion), the foreign loans have plunged by 60%.

In January, the largest share of external financing came from China which expended a sum of $288 billion. This figure brings China’s total disbursement in these seven months to $1.1 billion which incidentally indicates that China has been the major contributor of external financing for Pakistan during the period.

In July-January FY18, China’s contribution in external financing ($608 million) was second highest amongst all other financers while the largest share of loans were disbursed by Commercial Banks ($1.77 billion).

Moreover, China has already exceeded finance ministry’s expectation of loan disbursement in FY19 from the country, which was $804.99 million.

The second largest share of loan during the seven months has come from Commercial Banks, a sum of $499.44 million.

Meanwhile, other major contributors include Asian Development Bank (ADB) - $356.86 million, IDB (short term) - $297.37 million and IDA - $128.13 million.

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