ISLAMABAD – Pakistan has secured $1 billion loan from China in May, local TV channel reported.
The government had expected to fetch total foreign inflows to the tune of $12.233 billion, mainly in the form of loans during the whole fiscal year.
China has helped shore up external inflows up to $12.134 billion in the first 11 months (July-May) period of the current fiscal year 2020-21.
According to The News report, it seemed that Islamabad may surpass its expected target to get increased foreign funding than it had budgeted on the eve of the last budget.
The total provisional disbursements of external loans went up to $12.13 billion during July-May period of the current fiscal year against $10.6 billion obtained in the whole last fiscal year 2019-20.
The total external inflows in the form of multilateral loans, bilateral loans and issuance of international bonds had fetched $10.195 billion in the first 10 months (July-April) of the current fiscal year.
But external inflows jumped up by around $2 billion in May, 2021 out of which around $1 billion was obtained as a guaranteed loan from a “bilateral partner”, the source said.
It is likely that this bilateral partner is China as it provided a guaranteed loan to help Islamabad construct its much-desired infrastructure.
Top government functionaries said “some disbursements were included into inflows as the payments were made through guaranteed loans, so it was made part of official inflows in subsequent periods”.
