ISLAMABAD: Economic Affairs Division (EAD) data revealed Pakistan has signed short-term commercial loan agreement of $703m during first quarter (July-September) of current financial year 2017-18 with various foreign commercial banks.
Till now, $458m have been released and government had budgeted $1b of foreign commercial loans for FY 2017-18, out of which 46pc has already been consumed, reported a local newspaper.
According to information available, finance division is said to have procured a $100m loan from CitiBank on 28th July and these funds have already been released. $75m loan was obtained from Citibank again on 24th August and another of $78m on 29th August.
To support dwindling foreign exchange reserves, the finance division also obtained a loan worth $450m from a Credit Suisse led consortium of banks on 26th September. Allied Bank and United Bank Limited are part of this consortium. The disbursement for this loan agreement stands at $205m so far.
Sources disclosed the government is carrying out negotiations with other foreign commercial banks and will sign more loan agreements in coming months for budgetary support.
The current PML-N government has obtained $6.54b loans from foreign commercial banks. It received $322.5m in 2013-14, $1.4b in 2015-16, $4.367b in 2016-17 and $458m in first quarter of FY 2017-18. These commercial loans form 21pc of total $31.3b loans that have been obtained by this government since it came to power.
