SAUDI ARABIA, CHINA, ASSURE PAKISTAN OF $13 BILLION IN FUNDING AMID ONGOING CRISES

Sun 06 November 2022:

China and Saudi Arabia have guaranteed $13 billion in funding to Pakistan as it continues to struggle with economic and environmental crises.

According to the newspaper Dawn, Pakistani Finance Minister Ishaq Dar told reporters that China said it will provide $4 billion worth of sovereign loans to the country, as well as refinancing a further $3.3 billion in commercial bank borrowings and increasing currency swaps by up to $1.45 billion.

That was announced following Pakistani prime minister Shehbaz Sharif’s recent visit to Beijing, in which he and Chinese president Xi Jinping discussed further collaboration in development projects. Jinping assured Sharif that he would continue to assist Islamabad to achieve financial stability.

Dar told reporters that Saudi Arabia had also “given a positive response to Pakistan’s request for an additional $3 billion in funding and doubling of its deferred oil facility to $1.2 billion” in a bid to support the Pakistani economy.

Throughout the past year in particular, Pakistan’s economic crisis has worsened due to a multitude of factors including mismanagement, corruption, ongoing high inflation, low exports, and ever-growing debt.

That economic crisis was especially exacerbated by the record floods that have hit Pakistan over the past five months, submerging a third of the country under water and displacing around 33 million people.

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