CPEC not responsible for Pak financial woes: Umar

islamabad — Pakistan is ready to share details of the debt related to the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the decision to approach the Fund was taken after consultations with friendly countries, said Finance Minister Asad Umar.

Umar, however, rejected the US State Department’s statement, suggesting that the debt accrued on CPEC projects was to blame for the country’s current economic crisis.

He was speaking at a press conference in Islamabad on his return from Indonesia where he requested IMF’s Managing Director Christine Lagarde for a bailout package.

The IMF, he said, had asked for details of loans, including ones secured in relation to the CPEC projects, for analysing the debt sustainability.

Pakistan, the minister said, would share “normal debt-related information about CPEC with the IMF”.

Reiterating that the government had decided to approach the Fund in consultation with friendly countries, he said that talks with these countries were still under way.

The IMF team, Umar said, was scheduled to arrive in Pakistan on November 7 to negotiate the programme, likely to span over a threeyear period. He said that Pakistan

The government will have to take difficult decisions that would be painful for people but necessary under international commitments to get out of the current severe economic situation.

Assad Umar, Finance Minister

was facing a financing gap of $12 billion this year, adding that this gap would not be bridged by IMF alone.

“We will turn to friendly countries again if the IMF terms are unacceptable to Pakistan during talks on the programme,” he asserted.

The minister said that he had been contending for quite some time that economic conditions could lead to national security issues and the government would not compromise on matters of national security.

Umar said that the matter of obtaining oil on deferred payment from Saudi Arabia was still “on agenda”.

But the minister said “the government will have to take difficult decisions that would be painful for people but necessary under international commitments to get out of the current severe economic situation.” The US said that it would examine closely Pakistan request for a loan from the IMF, adding that “part of the reason that Pakistan found itself in this situation is Chinese debt”.

According to the finance minister, the US had only 16.5 per cent voting rights and the decision on Pakistan’s request would be taken by the IMF’s executive board with a 51 per cent majority vote. “I hope that the IMF charter will prevail” while deciding on Pakistan’s request, he said.

Rejecting the US assertion that the country was in an economic mess because of the CPEC-related debt repayments, Umar said that over the next three years, such repayments amounted to just $300 million a year, which “is very nominal against $9 billion of total debt repayments payable during this fiscal year alone”. —