Pakistan to take record foreign loans worth $12 billion in upcoming fiscal year
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*ISLAMABAD: **Pakistan to take record foreign loans worth $12 billion in upcoming fiscal year.*
Pakistan will be taking record foreign loans of over $12 billion in the upcoming fiscal year on the strength of an International Monetary Fund (IMF) programme, but it will still face a financing gap due to the requirement of building foreign currency reserves and $10.7 billion in debt repayments.
The Ministry of Finance has estimated the receipt of $12.3 billion from bilateral and multilateral lenders, commercial banks, issuance of Eurobonds and 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 billion higher than the outgoing fiscal year’s revised estimate of $10.3 billion worth of external inflows.
Pakistan has not planned to take fresh SAFE deposits from China in the new fiscal year as against $2 billion obtained in the outgoing year.
However, the country’s gross external financing requirement has been estimated at a minimum $19 billion, excluding the additional needs to shore up the foreign currency reserves to a level that are sufficient to finance three months of imports, said the sources.
