April 29, 2020 (MLN): Pakistan has acquired $6.56 billion foreign assistance in the 8MFY20 from multilateral, bilateral, Saudi Arabia-Short term loans as well as Commercial Banks.
The country provisionally received $287.5 million including $282.49 million loans and $5.01 million grants in February 2020.
According to the data released by the Economic Affairs Division (EAD), Pakistan received around $4.11 billion as foreign economic assistance from bilateral and multilateral sources in the eight months (Jul-Feb) of FY20.
During 8MFY20, the collective disbursement from bilateral donors amounted to $795.32 million.
A breakup of the funds received from bilateral sources shows that Pakistan received $459 million from China, followed by $128 million from the United Kingdom, $94 million from Korea, $41.67 million from the United States during 8MFY20.
In the month of February 2020, the country received $26.11 million from China, bringing the total to $27.73 assistance from bilateral sources.
Foreign assistance obtained by Pakistan through multilateral sources during Jul-Feb FY20 totaled $3.32 billion where ADB emerged as the primary lender within the multilateral group, as it disbursed loans approximately $22.17 billion to Pakistan during Jul-Feb FY20 whereas, Pakistan received a total grant of $3.07 million from ADB.
Regarding grants, ADB disbursed $13.92 million on the project of ‘Enhancing Public-Private Partnership in Sindh, Pakistan’, whereas it gave economic assistance of $15.86 million on ‘National Highway Network Development Program N-50 & N-70’project.
During the period under review, ADB disbursed $2.38 million on ‘Enhancing Public-Private Partnership in Punjab’ project. Moreover, it granted $4.17 million to the ‘Motorway M-4 Gojra-Sorkot’ project.
The second highest source of multilateral financing is IDB (S-term) with the assistance of $776 million during 8MFY20, followed by IDA with $229.99 million.
It is pertinent to mention that Pakistan received the highest amount of $134 million as financial assistance from IDB in February 2020 alone, bringing the cumulative amount of multilateral source to $189.63 million.
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