Islamabad: According to sources in Ministry of Finance, Pakistan hadn’t obtained any commercial foreign loan loans since Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi took the helm of affairs after the disqualification of ex-PM Nawaz Sharif late last month by Supreme Court of Pakistan.
Officials from Ministry of Finance said data was still being compiled for July in respect to the borrowings obtained and no agreements had been signed for the current month of August for any commercial loans, they said.
As per sources in finance ministry, the newly elected PM is distancing himself from the polices enacted by Finance Minister, Ishaq Dar and if this practice continues, the country’s reliance on external borrowing may start diminishing they said.
In last two weeks, PM Abbasi removed Dar as Chairman of the Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) and Cabinet Committee on Privatization (CCoP) and assigned the portfolio of chairman onto himself. As per sources, it indicates that PM isn’t very keen on following the economic policies followed by Dar previously.
In June 2017, the government had obtained loans from foreign commercial of which $300m from Bank of China, $275m from Citi Bank, $235m from Credit Suisse and $697m from Standard Chartered for budgetary support purposes.
