Country's October end debts stood at Rs10,984.2bn, NA told

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ISLAMABAD: Total amount of domestic and foreign loans at the end of October 2011 was Rs10,984.2 billion, while the government had borrowed Rs119 billion from the banking sector during the period July-September 2011, and borrowing from the State Bank of Pakistan for this period was Rs (-)104 billion.

"The government had borrowed total Rs275.11 billion of domestic and foreign loans during the current financial year at the end of October 2011. There was Rs 217.66 billion domestic loan and Rs57.45 billion foreign loans at the end of October, 2011. Total domestic loan of Pakistan was Rs 6232.9 billion and foreign loan Rs4751.3 billion," Finance Minister Dr Abdul Hafeez Sheikh on Friday told the National Assembly in a written reply to questions.

The Minister said that the level of borrowing was contained well within the target. He said that the normal procedure for debt retirement is that on due maturities, repayment and servicing of debt are paid out of consolidated fund as charged expenditure. Budget for the purpose is provided in Appropriations Servicing of Debt and "repayments of Debt" in the respective year, he said.

He said that the budget deficit of current financial year has been projected at 4.7 percent as against 5.9 percent of GDP during 2010-11. He added that the budget deficit for the period July-September 2011 amounted to 1.2 percent of GDP as against 1.6 percent of GDP during the same period of last year.

The Minister said that as per the medium-term macro-economic framework, the government intends to reduce the total public debt to 45.9 percent of GDP by financial year 2014.

He said that the debt burden of the country is measured in terms of debt to GDP ratio and it has been improved from 60 percent for FY 2010 to 59.3 percent at the end of FY 2011. This ratio improved further to 55.7 percent during November 2011, he said. He added that it is expected that by the end of FY 12 this ratio would be around 58 percent.