Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) have not withdrawn their $2billion cash deposits that they provided Pakistan as loans. Both theseloans matured in the fourth week of January 2021.
This indicates an improvement in lately-frosty relations between Pakistanand the two key Gulf nations, Express Tribune reportedlink.——————————
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The move by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) is also important,considering that the country had already withdrawn $2 billion out of $3billion loans that it extended to Pakistan in late 2018.
In December 2020, with the withdrawal of $1 billion deposits, Pakistan’sforeign minister had said that KSA had to take this step due to a slump incrude oil prices.
At the moment, it is unclear whether KSA would also revive the $3.2 billiondeferred oil financing facility. The kingdom had withdrawn the saidfinancing facility in May last year.
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On the other hand, the UAE has also rolled over a $1 billion deposit foranother year.——————————
UAE had disbursed $2 billion in loans to Pakistan, out of which theremaining $1 billion will mature in March. The newspaper report quotedsources familiar with the matter as saying that it could also be rolledover for another year.
In the meantime, Pakistan had made arrangements for repaying the remainingSaudi loan and has secured three different loans from China to return theSaudi debt.
