This is apropos a Business Recorder editorial "A Chinese favour" carried by the newspaper the other day. Its Leader has argued, among other things, that "Fortunately, the Chinese are too wise to take any hasty steps and they are unlikely to pull the plug on any deals without first sharing their concerns with Islamabad. ... Easy money is good for rotating repayment priorities and making the reserves look pretty, but it comes at a stiff cost. Just last year Pakistan paid China a good Rs20.5 billion in interest for this facility. Each time it is renewed the interest requirement only becomes steeper of course."
The foregoing strongly reflects our woefully flawed approach to borrowing; in fact debt accumulation is our way of life. We, in fact, are on a borrowing spree since the time immemorial. Every government has been adding to country's debt burden. The incumbent PTI government appears to be no different from its predecessors insofar as country's external debt challenge is concerned.
Mukhtar Ali (Karachi)
Copyright Business Recorder, 2020
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