Pakistan's poor foreign exchange reserves, lack of financial reforms increase its dependency on China: Report

Washington [US], February 16 : Pakistan's poor foreign exchange reserves and lack of financial reforms have increased its dependency on China, according to a media report.
"Pakistan's problem is it does not have enough foreign exchange reserves because the economy isn't growing fast enough for it to get money," VOA quoted Aparana Pande, a research fellow at the Hudson Institute, as saying with regard to the recent visit of Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan to China and the deepening relation between Islamabad and Beijing.
Islamabad is refusing to undertake structural reforms, which would enable the second and third tranches of the IMF and enable other foreign investors to invest money, Pande said.
Experts have also raised concerns over the rising debt of China on Islamabad with some saying that the relation between Beijing and Pakistan is a clear case of the communist regime's debt-trap diplomacy.
However, Madiha Afzal, a Brookings Institution fellow, cautioned against concluding too quickly that Chinese loans are bad for the Pakistani economy.
"It will depend on the terms of the loans, and China has proven to be a player which ... holds Pakistan to the terms of the loans. So Pakistan can't necessarily defer payments on those loans, even if it needs to or wants to," VOA quoted Afzal as saying.
It came after Islamabad and Beijing released a joint statement on February 6 following Imran Khan's meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Keqiang.
The leaders of the two countries held an in-depth exchange of views on the entire spectrum of bilateral relations as well as the regional situations and international political landscape. The meetings were marked by traditional warmth, strategic mutual trust and commonality of views that characterize the Pakistan-China All-Weather Strategic Cooperative Partnership, according to the joint statement.
Reiterating his felicitations on the centenary of the Communist Party of China, Prime Minister Imran Khan lauded the role of CPC leadership with President Xi Jinping at its core for China's growth and prosperity and appreciated President Xi for his personal contribution to promoting the enduring Pakistan-China partnership, the statement read.
The meeting between the two leaders comes in the wake of the US-led diplomatic boycott of the Olympic Games to protest the allegations of human rights abuses in Xinjiang, which China denies.
The high-profile meeting was meant to showcase support for Beijing in this period of diplomatic tension, according to VOA.
The US-based publication also said that a series of new financial agreements between China and Pakistan are signalling a shift in political alignments in the region with implications for South Asian neighbours, the United States and for the economic future of Pakistan itself.