If you thought excessive indebtedness was a Pakistan-only problem, you were mistaken. Global public debt — both domestic and external — continues to increase rapidly, driven by cascading crises, as well as sluggish and uneven performance of the global economy. It hit a new ‘milestone’ last year: a staggering $97 trillion, up from $91.4tr in 2022 and $50tr in 2010. And more than a third of that
The current exercise by the federal government to formulate a five-year plan is seen by many as somewhat misplaced in view of the expected three-year top-priority International Monetary Fund (IMF) stabilisation programme. In the past, as well, the 23 bailouts by the Fund and its reforms agenda took precedence over implementations of five-year plans; to quote an analyst, “Much of the five-year p
An energy starved country can never be a prosperous country. The availability of affordable energy is a cornerstone of any sustainable industrialisation and economic growth model. One would be hard-pressed to find any economies that were able to escape the low growth and poverty trap without access to affordable energy. Pakistan imports more than $15 billion of energy, making up between one-
During the last fiscal year, the government’s borrowings for budgetary support had almost doubled to Rs7.48 trillion from Rs3.75tr a year ago, according to the latest statistics released by the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP). Last year, the government kept borrowing excessively, chiefly to service old domestic debt and not to spend on the country’s development. During this fiscal year, we may see
The Auditor General of Pakistan (AGP) has expressed serious concerns over the country’s deteriorating financial affairs, which have resulted in less than 4 per cent of the over Rs38.67 trillion budget being available for socio-economic services. Besides, around 93pc of supplementary grants, worth over Rs8tr, are not approved by the parliament and remain unspent, representing a loss of public resou