FARKHUND YOUSAFZAI
ISLAMABAD: Governor State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) Jameel Ahmad said on Thursday that all debt repayments are on track and country’s foreign exchange reserves are expected to rise in the second half of the current fiscal year.
Recent floods badly damaged Pakistan’s economy and balance of trade while some major international factors such as Russia-Ukraine war, growing petroleum prices and other commodities in world markets and rising inflation across the world have multiplied the difficulties of Pakistan and other developing countries.
However, the SBP has taken measures to redress these negative effects and the people will see positive indicators in coming days, he said in an interview with SBP Podcast on Thursday.
SBP Governor said that at the start of current fiscal year, there was $23 billion repayable debt and $10 billion current account deficit but the government has repaid more than $6 billion foreign debts. Government has also successfully rolled over $4 billion bilateral loan with friendly countries.
State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) has to repay $4.7 billion this year
Now, Pakistan has to repay only 13 billion dollars in loans. But again $8.3 billion loans are governmental or commercial loans and it is expected that this amount will be also rolled over. So, the government will have to pay $4.7 billion of loans this year, he elaborated.
“We have received $4 billion dollars of inflows in the first half of the current fiscal year which are much higher than expected amount of 34 million dollars. We expect more inflows of billions of dollars in the second half. These are very positive indicators”, he said, adding that the foreign exchange reserves will further increase.
Ahmad said that concerns of economic default are baseless as debt situation is completely under control.
