Pakistan's loans surge to $4.6b in first five months of current FY

ISLAMABAD: Foreign loan disbursements surged to $4.69 billion in the past five months (July-November) of the current fiscal year, ARY News reported on Friday, quoting the Ministry of Economic Affairs report.

The loan details have been made public two days after Minister for Information and Broadcasting Fawad Chaudhry highlighted the gravity of the situation, saying that the government was taking new loans to pay off the old debt secured by the previous government.

The report said an amount of $1.53 billion was received in foreign commercial loans from banks during the first five months of the current fiscal year.

The multilateral lenders gave nearly $2 billion in loans in the corresponding period, which had started picking up on hopes for the revival of the IMF deal.

The PTI-led federal government took a loan of $120.8 million from the bilateral agreements.

Read more: Pakistan paid $12.27bn foreign debt in FY2021-22: Fawad Chaudhry

Pakistan received $20.92 as a loan from the  United States (US). Furthermore, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) disbursed $619 million during the July-November period, including the money for vaccine procurement.

The government took $468 million in loans from the Islamic Development Bank for crude oil imports and $1 billion worth of bonds were floated in July this year.

The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank released $37 million for project financing.