PESHAWAR: The federal government has decided to borrow $5 billion from Kazakhstan, China and Russia to stabilize foreign exchange reserves.
According to Express News, the government plans to borrow a loan of $3 billion from China and $2 billion from Russia and $1 billion Kazakhstan. The sources informed that loans from Nur-Sultan and Moscow will be borrowed to the construction of ML-1.
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According to sources in the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Economic Affairs has prepared the loan plan. The $3 billion initial agreement with China will be for one year while the loan agreement with Kazakhstan and Russia is likely to be finalized soon.
In December, last year, the federal finance ministry in a written response to the National Assembly said the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government has contracted $37.85 billion foreign loans in three years. The Ministry of Finance had submitted a written reply to the National Assembly regarding the foreign loans taken by the government.
The finance ministry furthered that the country has also received $1 billion in grants. The response said that during the same period, $29.81 billion was paid in terms of loans and interests repayment.
The Ministry of Finance said that foreign loans of $49.76 billion were taken during the five years of the previous government and at present the total domestic and Pakistan foreign loans has reached Rs414 trillion. According to the statement, by September 2021, the volume of total domestic debt had reached Rs264 trillion and the total foreign debt has raised to Rs150 trillion.
Earlier, this month, Prime Minister Imran Khan, while unveiling the public version of the National Security Policy, said that the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) conditions “affect national security” but weak economy forces the government to approach it for loan.