July-May 2019-20: Provisional external inflows stand at $7.451 billion

ISLAMABAD: Total provisional external inflows from multiple financing sources were $7.451 billion during July-May of fiscal year 2019-20 against the budgeted amount of $12.958 billion for the entire fiscal year which is around 58 percent of the budgeted amount.

According to the official data of Economic Affairs Division (EAD), the external inflows during the corresponding period of 2018-19 were $9.456 billion i.e. 98 percent of the budgeted amount of $9.692 billion.

Relatively low disbursements during fiscal year 2019-20 may be attributed to Covid-19 out-break as the pandemic has completely halted the development activities across the country. Accordingly, every development project implementation has been slowed down. However, ease in the lockdown by the government may lead to jack-up in project financing in the coming months, EAD stated.

The government budgeted foreign assistance of $12.957 billion for the current fiscal year including $2 billion foreign commercial loans. Data reveals that the government has already procured $2.073 billion from foreign commercial banks against $3.727 billion during the same period last year - around 28 percent of the total external loans of $7.451 billion procured during the first eleven months (July-May) of 2019-20.

Bank of China disbursed $200 million, Dubai Bank $563.85 million, Ajman Bank $155.61 million, the consortium-led by Suisse AG, UBL and ABL $205 million, Citibank $148.19 million, China Development Bank $700 million and Standard Chartered Bank (London) $26.50 million.

The budget estimates of foreign economic assistance through bilateral and multilateral development partners for fiscal year 2019-20 was $4.758 billion. During the first eleven months of 2019-20, an amount of $4.609 billion was received from multilateral and from bilateral development partners.

Amongst the multilateral development partners, Asian Development Bank provided $2.296 billion, Islamic Development Bank $879 million and World Bank gave $524 million. While from bilateral source, the leading donors were China ($487 million), UK ($128 million), Korea ($94 million) and USA ($61 million).

During July-April 2019-20, total servicing of external public debt was $6.530 billion against the budgeted amount of $10.423 billion for the entire fiscal year. The amount of $5,117 million (78 percent of total external public debt servicing) was repaid as principal and $1,413 million (22 percent) as interest on the outstanding stock of external public debt.

During the first ten months of current fiscal year, the government settled $2.077 billion worth of foreign commercial loans and repaid $1,000 million worth of Sukuk issued in Dec 2014.

The government has also repaid $1,760 million to multilaterals and $723 million worth of external loans of bilateral development partners. For the period July-April 2019-20, net transfers to the government were $806 million.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2020