Pakistan has to repay 77.5 billion dollar debt in 3 years
Pakistan is facing a major financial crisis. The country’s currency, the rupee, has fallen to the bottom against the dollar. In the meantime, it was learned that Pakistan will have to repay a large amount of debt in the next three years.
According to the United States Institute of Peace (USIP), India’s NDTV said that between April 2023 and June 2026, Pakistan will have to repay a debt of 77.5 billion dollars. This debt has to be paid by two very close countries – China and Saudi Arabia.
The report published last Thursday warned Pakistan. That said, Pakistan is already plagued by skyrocketing inflation, political conflict and rising terrorism. Now the country will be in danger if it has to repay this large amount of debt.
According to the USIP report, the debt-ridden country will have to repay large sums owed to Chinese financial institutions, private lenders and Saudi Arabia over the next three years. The amount of debt repayable from April 2023 to June 2026 will be $77.5 billion. Not only that, USIP has said that final action will be taken against the government of Pakistan if it fails to pay the specified amount within that period. Pakistan, however, is optimistic that China will once again extend the loan repayment period.
However, there was no news about this in the Pakistani media.
Pakistan has already approached the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to come out of this situation. They were supposed to receive the IMF loan in November 2022. The government of Pakistan is making due efforts to fulfill all the conditions of the IMF to get that loan.
But the IMF is not giving anything to Pakistan. Due to their new conditions, this loan has now become a golden deer for Pakistan.
According to a report in the Pakistani newspaper The Dawn, despite the IMF talking about pro-poor policies, the conditions it is imposing will increase the suffering of poor people.
Pakistan signed an agreement with the IMF in 2019, which will expire on June 30 this year. However, Pakistan continues to negotiate with the IMF to extend the agreement. But neither side could reach a final decision yet.
Meanwhile, the former governor of State Bank of Pakistan, Murtaza Syed, recently told the Economic Times that Pakistan’s reserves fell to 3 billion dollars or 3 billion dollars a few days ago. The country’s foreign currency reserves have never exceeded $21 billion in its history. Whereas India has reserves of 600 billion and China has reserves of about 400 million dollars. Bangladesh’s reserves are also close to 50 billion.
Murtaza Syed also said, meanwhile, since the 1990s, Pakistan has received IMF loan assistance 11 times. Bangladesh has taken three times. During this period, China and India did not have to shake hands even once. In all, Pakistan has approached the IMF 21 times since independence.
There is no end to the misery
There is no end to the plight of Pakistan in crisis. A few days later, news of a new crisis was heard. The country is unable to buy fuel due to lack of foreign currency. As a result load shedding is still their constant companion.
According to a report of Arab News Pakistan, Pakistan’s Minister of State for Petroleum Musadiq Malik said that it will not be possible to supply gas to the common people of the country for 24 hours. As the supply falls short of the demand, the cry for gas has started across Pakistan.
The minister also said that from now the price of gas will be different for the rich and the poor. That is, the rich will have to spend more money to buy gas. Shahbaz Sharif’s coalition government has taken such a decision.
Meanwhile, Canada’s famous coffee brand Tim Horton opened a sales center in Lahore, Pakistan on February 10. The price of coffee there starts from 350 to 800 rupees. Despite this economic crisis, there is no shortage of people to drink coffee at such a price. After the opening, the picture of the crowd in front of this shop was printed in the country’s media.
