In the first ten months of the current fiscal year, Pakistan borrowed more than $15.5 billion in foreign loans, roughly 70% more than it borrowed from foreign sources in the same period last year.
The Ministry of Economic Affairs stated in its monthly report on foreign economic assistance that it received approximately $13.03 billion in foreign assistance in 10MFY 2022.
According to the ministry’s monthly report on foreign inflows, the government met nearly 92.5 percent of the $14.09 billion in foreign assistance targets set for the entire fiscal year.
This does not include more than $1.5 billion in costly foreign debt in Naya Pakistan Certificates from overseas Pakistanis or more than $1 billion secured from the International Monetary Fund in February. The State Bank of Pakistan reports both of these loans separately.
As a result, the total foreign debt from external sources has reached $51.03 billion since 2018. When slightly more than $4.5 billion in IMF funds were included during the same period, the total foreign loans increased to $55.13 billion.
According to the data, the size of foreign loans has steadily increased over the last three and a half years, rising from $10.59 billion in FY2018-19 to $10.662 billion in FY2019-20 and then reaching $14.28 billion in FY2020-21, followed by $13.03 billion in the first ten months of the current fiscal year.
While the annual budget target for foreign debt in 2021-22 was set at $14.088 billion, the government borrowed $13.03 billion in just the first ten months.
There were four major sources of foreign inflows: $4.05 billion from multilateral lenders, $3 billion in time deposits from Saudi Arabia, $2.623 billion in commercial loans from private banks, and $2.041 billion in international bonds.
The largest bilateral loan was $201 million from Saudi Arabia, followed by $153 million from China and $64 million from the United States. In ten months, total loans from bilateral lenders totaled $486 million.
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