Government gets $784.97m loan from foreign banks

The government procured $784.97 million from foreign commercial banks (around 30 percent) out of total external loans of $2.525 billion in the first four months (July-October) of 2019-20 and around 50 percent more than the comparable period of last year ($1.584 billion).

This was revealed by the Economic Affairs Division (EAD) data released here on Tuesday.

The government budgeted foreign assistance of $12.957 billion for the current fiscal year including $2 billion foreign commercial loans. The country received $1.061 billion from multilaterals (excluding the first tranche release from the IMF) and $473.18 million bilaterally during July-October 2019-20.

Further $205.43 million was received under the head of Saudi Arabia-short term (Saudi oil facility) in the current fiscal year so far against the budgeted $3.2 billion.

According to EAD, the government borrowed $784.97 million from foreign commercial banks compared to $399.51 million during the same period of last year. Ajman Bank disbursed $88.92 million, $155 million was disbursed by the consortium-led by Suisse AG, UBL and ABL in October and Dubai Bank disbursed $193.05 million in September.

Citibank disbursed $148.2 million in August. The country borrowed $123.31 million from Dubai Bank out of total committed amount of $325 million and $50 million from a consortium of Credit Suisse in July.

China disbursed $295.24 million in the first four months of fiscal year 2019-20 including $133.02 million for the Havelian-Thakot road project, $140.16 million for the Sukkur-Multan motorway, $13.86 million for the Orange Line Metro project and $8.20 for Neelum Jhelum Hydro power project.

The Islamic Development Bank disbursed $303.68 million in the first four months out of the total of $1.1 billion budgeted for the current fiscal year. Asian Development Bank (ADB) disbursed $573.90 million, United Kingdom (UK) $106.69 million, IDA $105.06 million, IBRD $26.56 million, International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) $25.89 million, USA $30.73 million and Japan $21.25 million in the first four months of current fiscal year.