ISLAMABAD - The pace of foreign borrowing has slowed down mainly due to the absence of International Monetary Fund’s loan programme as Pakistan received only $7.76 billion in nine months, which was not enough to build the country’s foreign exchange reserves. The government had budgeted foreign assistance of $22.817 billion for the current fiscal year. However, it has received only 34 percent ($7.76 billion) of the annual projected amount in nine months (July to March) of the current fiscal year due to the suspension of IMF’s loan programme that dried all the foreign inflows. The volume of loan was not enough to build the country’s foreign exchange reserves, which got reduced mainly due to the repayment against previous loans. The inflows are expected to accelerate after revival of IMF’s programme. According to the data of Ministry of Economic Affairs, the country received $4.021 billion from multilaterals and $1.064 billion from bilateral, $900 million from foreign commercial banks, $1.166 billion from IMF and $612.3 million from Naya Pakistan Certificate during July-March period of the year 2022-23. The government has received $351.78 million loan in the month of March this year.
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The international lenders are not releasing sufficient funds to Pakistan in the absence of IMF programme. The revival of the IMF programme would pave way for getting loans from other bilateral and multilateral sources. However, the IMF programme has yet to revive despite the government had taken prior actions including increasing gas and electricity prices, announcing mini budget and enhancing interest rate. Recently, the friendly countries including Saudi Arabia and Arab Emirates (UAE) have given confirmation to Pakistan about financial inflows. Saudi Arabia already has confirmed to provide $2 billion, whereas UAE confirmed $1 billion. Now, the government expressed the firm hope that after these confirmations, the staff-level agreement would be finalized in the next few days, which would be followed by the IMF Board’s approval. The data showed that the Asian Development Bank (ADB) disbursed $1.94 billion during the period under review compared to the budgeted $3.202 billion for the entire fiscal year. The ADB disbursed $12.46 million in March 2023. China disbursed $54.93 million during the first nine months of the current fiscal year against the government budgeted estimates of $49.02 million for the current fiscal year, however, no money was received in October, November, December, January, February and March. Saudi Arabia disbursed $782.28 million for oil payment against the budgeted $800 million. The USA disbursed $24.27 million during the period under review against the budgeted $32.49 million for the current fiscal year. Korea disbursed $21.31 million and France $29.87 million during the first nine months of the current fiscal year.
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The IDA $1.102 billion against the budgeted $1.4 billion, IBRD $146.99 million against the budgeted $1.246 billion and Islamic Development Bank disbursed $16.81 million against the budgeted $3.38 million for the current financial year. The IsDB (short-term) disbursed $161 million in the current fiscal year. The AIIB disbursed $546.75 million in the current fiscal year so far.