Pakistan gets USD 4.6 billion foreign loans in five months
Dec 24, 2021
Islamabad [Pakistan], December 24 : Pakistan has received around 4.6 billion US dollars in foreign loans during the first five months of the current fiscal year, taking its total loan inflows to about 40 billion US dollars since July 2018, local media reported on Friday.
Citing a monthly report on foreign assistance released by the country's Ministry of Economic Affairs (MEA) on Thursday, Dawn reported that Pakistan received about 4.699 billion US dollars inflows, including 4.575 billion US dollars in loans and about 123 million US dollars in grants.
The newspaper further stated that the Pakistan government has a budgetary target to obtain about 14.1 billion US dollars in foreign loans and grants during the current fiscal year.
The total loans in five months included 2.93 billion US dollars for a programme or budgetary support (non-project aid) and 1.17 billion US dollars for projects.
A few days back, Pakistan's MEA had reported that total disbursements of foreign assistance during fiscal year 2020-21 amounted to 13.547 billion US dollars, about 27 per cent higher than 10.7 billion US dollars in fiscal year 2019-20, as per Dawn.
Meanwhile, Pakistan's foreign currency reserves are depleting after the persistent stalemate over the renewal of the IMF package.
Pakistan's total foreign exchange reserves stood at USD 25.027 billion; the foreign reserves held by the SBP stood at over USD 18 billion and commercial banks USD 6.45 billion, reported Geo News.
