ISLAMABAD: Pakistan paid $10.4 billion on account of debt servicing ofexternal public loans during FY20, according to an annual report on foreigneconomic assistance released by the Economic Affairs Division (EAD) onFriday.

The report states that the PTI government paid an amount of $10.4 billionduring FY20 on account of debt servicing of external public loans,consisting of a principal payment of $8.5 billion and interest payment of$1.9 billion.

According to the details, Pakistan paid $704 million to China, $228 millionJapan, $1,005 million ADB and $4,900 million commercial banks apart fromother countries as well as lending organisations.

On the other hand, multilateral and bilateral development partnersdisbursed $6.5 billion in 2019-20 as compared to $4.1 billion last year,registering 59pc growth.

In addition, the government also raised $3.4 billion from foreigncommercial sources to meet its external debt obligations and support thebalance of payments. Out of the total disbursement of $10.7 billion, 97pcwere loans and 3pc were grants.

The report mentioned that disbursements of $10.7 billion during 2019-20were mainly under the projects and programs loans/grants from multilateral,bilateral development partners and financial institutions. The disbursementincluded $5,645m or 53pc of total disbursements were from the multilateraldevelopment partners mainly from Asian Development Bank (ADB), IslamicDevelopment Bank (IDB), Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) and theWorld Bank (WB).

In addition, $3,373m or 32pc of total disbursements were from foreigncommercial banks mainly to refinance maturing commercial debt of pastperiods.

An amount of $1,644m or 15pc of the disbursements were from bilateraldevelopment partners particularly Saudi Arabia, China and the UK.

Source:link