Pakistan secures $3bn at 1pc

Pakistan has secured over $3 billion in fresh funding from multilateral lenders on concessional terms and the inflows will start during the current fiscal year. The international lenders granted this significant loan at about 1pc interest rate with a repayment period of 40 years during the recent donor conference held in Geneva. Secretary Planning Zafar Ali Shah told journalists that the international community led by multilateral agencies had made “clear pledges of about $9.7bn” against Pakistan’s expected target of about $8.1bn. “This was also an ambitious target given the global economic slump amid surging inflation and the Ukraine war but was significantly oversubscribed,” he said. These pledges, he added, were in addition to $13.5bn to be arranged through separate sources under Strategic Recovery Objectives for the development of Railways Mainline Track (ML-1) from Karachi to Peshawar, upgradation of Indus Highway and 10-year National Flood Protection Programme which had been approved by the Council of Common Interests (CCI) in 2018 at an estimated cost of Rs332bn but could not take off over the subsequent four years.