ISLAMABAD: The country’s foreign loans increased by $49.2 billion in last 10 years as just $17.15 billion were borrowed from 1947 to 2005.
This was revealed by Economic Affairs Division (EAD) Secretary Saleem Sethi, while giving details of $30.7 billion to the Senate Standing Committee on Finance, Revenue and Economic Affairs.
On average, Pakistan received close to $5 billion in fresh loans every year and returned about $2.5 billion to its international creditors. He said that Pakistan had taken $22.799 billion from multilateral and $7.92 billion from bilateral sources during the period from 2005-06 to 2014-15.
Repayment amounts for the last couple of years have been increasing due to the $7.7-billion loan Islamabad obtained from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in 2008.
In addition, State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) signed two separate loans with the IMF, first in 2008 and the second in 2013, totalling $14 billion.
The total volume of the 2008 loan was $11 billion but disbursement stood at $7.7 billion. The size of the second IMF package is currently $6.2 billion and out of that, $4.2 billion has already been disbursed. The Ministry of Finance raised another $4.6 billion by floating international bonds from 2005 through 2015.
The Chairman of the Standing Committee, Senator Saleem Mandviwalla, showed concern over the phenomenal growth in external borrowings. The parliamentarians were also alarmed over the increasing borrowings for budgetary support and governance reforms.
