Pakistan’s external public debt rises by $1.2 bn in six months

ISLAMABAD: Cash-strapped Pakistan’s external public debt sharply rose by $1.2 billion in six months to $86.358 billion as of September 30, 2023, with the World Bank and China emerging as the largest multilateral and bilateral contributors to total disbursement, a government report has said.

Pakistan received total foreign inflows of $3.5 billion in July-September 2023 against loan repayments of $1.5 billion, resulting in a net inflow of $ 1.97 billion.

“As of September 30, 2023, the total external public debt of the government was $ 86.358 billion,” the first quarterly report on Foreign Economic Assistance (FEA) of the current fiscal year released on Wednesday by the Ministry of Economic Affairs said.

Around 64 per cent of the total external public debt was obtained from multilateral and bilateral sources having concessional terms and longer maturity, according to a report in newspaper The Dawn that quoted the MEA. The external public debt as of March 31, 2023, amounted to $ 85.18 billion. In comparison, the country had received $ 2.2 billion in loans and repaid $ 2.06 billion during the same period last fiscal year (July-September 2022), leading to a net addition of $ 142 million. The report also said Pakistan had signed new agreements worth

$ 642 million in fresh commitments during the first quarter of the year and all new commitments had been funded by multilateral development partners.

International bonds and commercial loans could not be secured because of adverse market conditions following poor credit rating and resultantly unaffordable interest rates, it said.

This $ 3.538 billion FEA is in addition to $ 1.2 billion released by the IMF on July 13 as the first tranche of the $ 3 billion Stand-By Arrangement (SBA) and $1 billion by the UAE that are separately accounted for by the State Bank of Pakistan.