Pakistan’s external debt surges to $12.77bn during 9MFY22

April 21, 2022 (MLN): The country has incurred external loans of $12.77 billion in the first nine months of the ongoing fiscal i.e., July- March FY22 from multiple financing sources against the annual budget estimates of $14.09bn for the entire fiscal year FY22, the latest monthly report by the Economic Affairs Division (EAD) showed.

In the month of March, the country got foreign assistance of $588.97 million from multiple financing sources.

Out of $12.77bn, the government obtained $10.11bn loan for non-project aid that includes $8.88bn in the form of program/budgetary support assistance to restructure Pakistan’s economy, $1.21bn for short-term credit, and $24.41mn for TDPs while $1.82bn has been obtained for project aid financing and guaranteed loans of $832.5mn during July-March FY22.

Going into details made available by EAD, the disbursement from bilateral and multilateral development partners maintained a strong trend as it totaled $4.27bn of foreign economic assistance during 9MFY22. These healthy inflows also helped to improve foreign exchange reserves.

The Ministry of Economic Affairs noted the country relied on foreign commercial borrowing as it was recorded at $2.62bn that included a $1.14bn from Dubai Bank, $591.25mn loan from Emirates NBD, $61mn from Ajman Bank, $487.26mn loan from Standard Chartered Bank London while Suisse AG, UBL & ABL provided $343.50mn during July-March FY22.

Similarly, the country received $2.04bn from bonds issuance and $3bn time deposit from Saudi Arabia during the said period.

During July-March FY22, the foreign assistance obtained by Pakistan through multilateral sources totaled nearly $3.95bn. Amongst the multilateral development partners, Asian Development Bank (ADB) provided $1.45bn, followed by Islamic Development Bank (IDB) provided $1.21bn as short-term finance and International Development Association-World Bank (IDA) with $942mn.

The monthly bulletin revealed that the collective disbursement from bilateral donors amounted to $320.43mn during July-March FY22 wherein Pakistan received $102.05mn from China, followed by Saudi Arabia with $101.09mn, the United States with a grant of $60.85mn, the United Kingdom with $14.54mn while Japan gave $13.9mn during the period under review.

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