Amid falling economy, Pak NSA hosts Bill Gates, delegation at AICC
Feb 18, 2022
Islamabad [Pakistan], February 18 : Amid the ongoing financial crisis, Islamabad has hosted Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and his colleagues at the Afghanistan Inter-Ministerial Coordination Cell (AICC).
Pakistan's National Security Adviser (NSA) Moeed Yusuf on Thursday expressed his pleasure to receive Bill Gates and his colleagues at AICC, reported Daily Times.
Taking to Twitter, the NSA shared his views on receiving the Microsoft co-founder who made his maiden day-long visit to Pakistan.
"Pleasure to receive @BillGates and his colleagues at the Afghanistan Inter-Ministerial Coordination Cell (AICC). We had a very productive conversation with international organizations and Pakistani experts," Moeed said in a Tweet.
Pakistan is currently marred with financial challenges as the country's trade deficit is surging high. Inflation is rising and the Government had to bring the mini-budget to hike taxes to meet certain demands of the International Monetary Fund IMF.
Last month a report of Policy Research Group said that a full-fledged crisis will be knocking at the doors of Pakistan's struggling economy by end of the current fiscal year if the IMF program does not revive by the end of January or early February this year.
Pakistan will have to pay back a bulk amount of 8.638 billion USD on account of foreign loans in the second half period of the current fiscal year.
The repayment of foreign loans has gone up by 399 per cent in the last four years in the rupee term. It stood at Rs 286.6 billion in 2017-18 and now it is estimated at Rs 1,427.5 billion.
In dollar terms, Pakistan had to repay foreign loans, both the principal and mark-up, to the tune of over 12.4 billion USD, as per it.
Amid the yawning Current Account Deficit (CAD) and decreasing foreign exchange reserves despite receiving generous dollar inflows of 3 billion USD from Saudi Arabia, over 2 billion USD from the IMF, 1 billion USD through International Eurobond in the first half (July-December) period, the foreign currency reserves stood at 17.6 billion USD held by the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) till December 31, 2021.
The foreign exchange reserves held by the SBP stood at 17.8 billion USD in July 2021. Despite dollar inflows of around 6 billion USD, the foreign exchange reserves could not be built up in the first six months of the current fiscal year, according to Policy Research Group.
