In its attempts to avoid defaulting on international debt obligations and to keep up import spending, Pakistan has borrowed a record $16 billion in foreign loans in just one year.
Official documents of the government showed that the amount has been borrowed in the fiscal year 2018-19, of which 11 months have been of the incumbent Pakistan Thereek i Insaaf government.
The current government is responsible for $13.6 billion out of the total – the highest amount borrowed by any Pakistani government in a year. The remaining $2.4 billion was taken by the caretaker setup in July 2018.
The $16-billion loans in the just-ended fiscal year included disbursement of $5.5 billion by Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar. However, the data that the economic affairs ministry will publish this week will not show $5.5 billion as part of federal government loans, according to sources.
The government would officially disclose loan disbursements for fiscal year 2018-19 at $10.5 billion, the sources said. The remaining $5.5 billion has been booked on balance sheet of the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP).
However, spokesman for the finance ministry, Dr Khaqan Najeeb, has said that deposits from the UAE and Saudi Arabia are held with the SBP. So these deposits are not available for financing the government’s budgetary operations, and are part of the SBP reserves.
