*ISLAMABAD: **Pakistan to take record foreign loans worth $12 billion inupcoming fiscal year.*
Pakistan will be taking record foreign loans of over $12 billion in theupcoming fiscal year on the strength of an International Monetary Fund(IMF) programme, but it will still face a financing gap due to therequirement of building foreign currency reserves and $10.7 billion in debtrepayments.
The Ministry of Finance has estimated the receipt of $12.3 billion frombilateral and multilateral lenders, commercial banks, issuance of Eurobondsand the IMF in fiscal year 2019-20, according to sources in the ministry.
The estimated fresh borrowing will be nearly one-fifth or $1.9 billionhigher than the outgoing fiscal year’s revised estimate of $10.3 billionworth of external inflows.
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Pakistan has not planned to take fresh SAFE deposits from China in the newfiscal year as against $2 billion obtained in the outgoing year.
However, the country’s gross external financing requirement has beenestimated at a minimum $19 billion, excluding the additional needs to shoreup the foreign currency reserves to a level that are sufficient to financethree months of imports, said the sources.
