Govt retires $16.4 billion external debt in last two years: Senate informed

Jan 22, 2021: Minister for Industries and Production Hammad Azhar on Friday informed the Senate the government has paid the US $16.4 billion towards external debt and Rs19.9 trillion towards domestic debt during the last two years.

Responding to various supplementary questions during Question Hour, the minister said record debt servicing was done during the last two years. The government was retiring US $10 billion debt annually, he added.

To another question, he said that the country’s foreign exchange reserves have increased to the US $20 billion despite record debt servicing.

He said the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) has foreign exchange reserves of $ 12-13 billion. The reserves have increased due to improvement in exports and remittances, he added.

The minister said the current account has shown a surplus of $1.6 billion during the first five months of the current financial year against a deficit of US $ 1.7 billion in the corresponding period of last year.

To a separate question, he said no cut on the NFC share of provinces has been imposed by the federal government. It was not a fact, that the government has imposed cut of Rs154 billion on the share of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa in the NFC Award.

APP