Pakistan borrowed $2.891 billion in July 2023 from multiple financing sources against the annual budget estimates of $17.62 billion for the current fiscal year 2024, according to data issued by the Economic Affairs Division (EAD).
The data further shows that the government has budgeted $17.619 billion from multiple financing sources for the current fiscal year including $17.384 billion in loans and $234.60 million in grants.
The country borrowed $10.844 billion from multiple financing sources including $2.206 billion from foreign commercial banks during the fiscal year 2022-23 against the budgeted foreign assistance of $22.817 billion. However, the $10.844 billion did not include the rollover of friendly countries’ deposits amounting to $6 billion (i.e. $3 billion each from China and Saudi Arabia), and the re-financing of Chinese loans of $1.3 billion.
The $2.890 billion included $2 billion received from Saudi Arabia under the head of time deposit during July 2023, revealed the Economic Affairs Division (EAD) data. The data further shows that the government had budgeted estimates of $4.5 billion from the foreign commercial banks for the current fiscal year 2023-24, however, no money was received under this head in July.
Out of $2.89 billion, the government obtained a $2.25 billion loan for non-project aid that includes $2.08 billion in the form of program/budgetary support assistance to restructure Pakistan’s economy, $67.23 million for short-term credit, while $640.11 million has been obtained for project aid financing during the month.
The disbursement from bilateral and multilateral development partners came in at $307.52 million during July. These healthy inflows also helped to improve foreign exchange reserves.
The Ministry of Economic Affairs noted that the country continued to depend on foreign commercial borrowing as it amounted to $2.07 billion which included a $2 billion time deposit, and $74.7 million from Naya Pakistan Certificate during July 2023.
During the month, the foreign assistance obtained by Pakistan through multilateral sources totaled nearly $193.64 million. Amongst the multilateral development partners, CATIC (PAF) provided $508.34 million, followed by International Development Association-World Bank (IDA) with $82.71 million, IsDB (Short-term) with $67.23 million, Asian Development Bank (ADB) provided $22.59 million, and Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) with $11.74 million.
The collective disbursement from bilateral donors amounted to $113.88 million during the month wherein Pakistan received $100m from Saudi Arabia, followed by the USA with $8.17 million, Korea with $4.85m, France with $0.56 million, Germany with $0.17 million, while Japan gave $ 0.13 million during the period under review.
