The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) government, in its first year, has accumulated a record public debt of Rs7,509 billion, according to official documents available with a private media house.
Sources said that the foreign debt incurred from August 2018 to August 2019 stood at Rs2.8 trillion, while the internally accumulated figure stood at Rs4.7 trillion.
“Pakistan’s total public debt increased by 1.43pc to Rs32.240 trillion in the first two months of the current fiscal year,” they added.
Total public debt stood at Rs31.786 trillion at the end of June 2019, the data released by the State Bank of Pakistan showed.
Of the total public debt, the share of domestic debt increased by 3.68pc to Rs21.495 trillion at the end of August. Foreign debt, however, fell 2.80pc to Rs10.745 trillion in the period under review.
The tax collection in the first quarter of the current fiscal year stood at Rs960 billion, falling short of the government’s target of Rs1 trillion for July-September.
The government has projected public debt to increase by 47pc to Rs45.57 trillion in five years.
The domestic debt is also set to increase 30pc to Rs26.8 trillion, while external debt is expected to surge 80pc to Rs18.77 trillion.
