The International Monetary Fund has likewise rejected Pakistan’s borrowing request and has failed to reach an agreement on any serious account of the State Bank of Pakistan.
For the first time, Pakistan’s overall debt and obligations have surpassed 50.5 trillion Pakistani rupees (PKR), according to sources quoting official numbers released on Wednesday. The current government alone has contributed PKR 20.7 trillion to this total. Pakistan’s total debt and public debt have deteriorated since the Imran Khan government took office, according to news agency ANI.
The State Bank of Pakistan issued debt data till September 2021, a day after Prime Minister Imran Khan branded rising debt as a “national security risk,” according to the Express Tribune.
Pakistan’s total debt and liabilities reached a new high of PKR 50.5 trillion at the end of September 2021, an increase of PKR 20.7 trillion over the previous 39 months. According to the Express Tribune, the country’s total debt has increased by about 70%.
The Ministry of Finance and Revenue also notified the Pakistan National Assembly on Friday that the country’s public debt climbed by 14.9 trillion from July 2018 to June 2021.
The house was informed in a written response to a question that exchange rate depreciation added around PKR 2.9 trillion to public debt (20% of the increase), while the government paid PKR 7.5 trillion for interest servicing, accounting for 50% of the increase in total public debt, according to The News International.
The International Monetary Fund has also rejected Pakistan’s borrowing request, according to The Express Tribune, and has refused to agree on any serious responsibility for the State Bank of Pakistan. According to the article, the central bank’s profit will not be handed to the federal government in full unless Pakistan’s State Bank obtains insurance to back its monetary liabilities.
According to the Tribune, the government’s inability to borrow from the central bank has left it at the mercy of commercial banks, who have recently requested interest rates far higher than the key policy rate.
