Here’s How Much Foreign Debt Pakistan Had Borrowed in Seven Months of FY2021

Pakistan has incurred a foreign debt of $6.661 billion from multiple financing sources in the first seven months (July-January) of 2020-21.

This makes up for 54 percent of the total budgeted external loans of $12.233 billion for the entire fiscal year 2020-21, as per the data released by the Economic Affairs Division (EAD).

The data also shows that the country had received $959.47 million external inflows from multiple financing sources, including $675.39 million from foreign commercial banks in January 2021.

In the corresponding period of the fiscal year 2019-20, the external inflows had been $6.282 billion, which were around 48 percent of the annual budgeted amount of $12.958 billion.

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The total receipt of $6.661 billion constitutes $1.643 billion or 25 percent as program/budgetary support assistance, $2.730 billion (41 percent) as foreign commercial borrowing, $897 million (13 percent) as project assistance to finance development projects, $391 million (06 percent) as commodity financing, and $1 billion (15 percent) received as safe deposits from China.

According to the data, the government had procured $2.730 billion loans from foreign commercial banks during July-January 2020-21, including $34.62 million from Ajman Bank; $319.91 million from the Standard Chartered Bank (London) besides $100.39 million in January; $815.11 million from Dubai Bank; $190 million from the consortium-led by Suisse AG, UBL, and ABL, including $75 million in January; $370 million from Emirates NBD; and $1 billion from the ICBC of China, including $500 million in January. The data also reflects $1 billion of safe China deposit.

The bilateral and multilateral development partners disbursed $2.931 billion during the period under review (July-January) 2020-21 against the budgetary allocation of $5.811 billion for the fiscal year 2020-21.

Among the multilateral development partners, Asian Development Bank had predominantly provided $1.135 billion, and the World Bank had disbursed $834 million against the budgetary allocation of $2.257 billion.

From the bilateral sources, France, the USA, and China had provided $34.8 million, $74.4 million, and $95.4 million respectively.

According to the EAD data, during the first seven months of the current financial year, the total servicing of external public debt had been $3.269 billion against the annual repayment estimates of $10.363 billion for the entire fiscal year. Of this, $2.686 billion (82 percent of total external public debt servicing) had been repaid as principle, and $583 million (18 percent) as interest on the outstanding stock of external public debt.

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During July-December 2020-21, the government had settled $1.579 billion of foreign commercial loans.

For the period July- December 2020-21, the net transfers to the government had been $2.885 billion. The positive net transfers had come mainly due to higher inflows from multilateral development partners and due to $1,000 million of a time safe deposit from China.

According to the EAD, the stock of external loans that had been obtained on market-based instruments had increased by $620 million, and the share of concessional external loans with longer maturity had increased by $1.265 billion.