ISLAMABAD: The federal government has obtained a Rs 77.77 billion loan in January 2018 alone from commercial banks and multilateral institutions.
On the other hand, documents indicated that the government had acquired Rs 703 billion loans in total from different countries, commercial banks and multilateral institution in the first seven months of the current fiscal year.
Meanwhile, documents available with Pakistan Today showed that the government had acquired Rs73.9 billion loans from different countries, commercial banks and multilateral institutions in the last seven months, starting from July 2017 and ending in January 2018.
China was the leading country which gave loans to Pakistan by providing Rs64.63 billion in seven months, whereas France gave away a Rs 1.09 billion loan, Germany Rs245 million, Japan Rs5.3 billion, Kuwait Rs192 million and Rs2.3 billion separately in the aforementioned period.
Furthermore, the government had also obtained loans by selling bonds in the international market. The money accumulated through the sale of bonds was recorded at Rs263 billion.
In addition to this, the government also obtained Rs190 billion from five international commercial banks. Citibank lent the Pakistani government Rs28 billion, Dubai Bank Rs5.8 billion, ICBC-China Rs107 billion, SCB (London) Rs21 billion and Suisse AG, UBl, ABL Rs25 billion.
The document available with this scribe also indicated that the government had obtained Rs175 billion in the first seven months of the current fiscal year 2017-18. The Asian Development Bank (ABB) provided Rs51 billion, AIIB Rs1.69 billion, IBRD Rs10 billion, IDA Rs20 billion, IDB Rs5.8 billion, IDB (ST) Rs83 billion, IFAD Rs1.04 billion, and OPEC Fund amounting to Rs428 million.
Moreover, the government had also received Rs28 billion grant on a bilateral basis from multilateral organisations in projects related to the energy efficiency programme, social protection development, highway investment, Peshawar Sustainable Rapid Bus project, Shorkot to Khanewal motorway, Mohmand Dam, Afghan refugees and Energy Efficient Investment programme, the documents revealed.
It is worth mentioning here that the State Bank of Pakistan in its report had stated that Pakistan’s external debt and liabilities had climbed to $89 billion at the end of December last. There was an increase of $13.2 billion in the amount of external debt and liabilities in just one year.
In December 2016, the external debt and liabilities of Pakistan amounted to $75.7 billion. At the time, Pakistan’s gross official reserves were $18.6 billion, which have already slid to $12.8 billion.
