KARACHI: The government borrowed Rs850 billion from commercial banks for budgetary support between July 1, 2016 and May 19, 2017, compared with Rs502 billion in the corresponding period of the last fiscal year, reflecting increase of 69.43 per cent.
Non-tax revenues have declined due to fall in inflows from the coalition support fund. However, the federal government had repaid Rs188 billion in debts to the central bank a year earlier.
The pace of public sector borrowing from the central bank remained higher since the first quarter of FY17 right after the conclusion of the International Monitory Fund-backed Extended Fund Facility programme.
In FY17, the government was to borrow Rs741.3 billion from banks to meet budget-related expenditures, which was higher than the actual target of Rs452.9 billion set for the current fiscal.
The government has announced it would allocate Rs1 trillion for the federal Public Sector Development Programme. This would be 40 percent higher than revised estimates of Rs715 billion for the current financial year.
