Photo Credits: Dawn.com

Governor State Bank of Pakistan (SBP), Jameel Ahmed said that Pakistan will repay all its debts on time and there are no risks of the country defaulting due to the nonpayment of international debts.

Ahmed was addressing the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) and said, “Let me assure you that we will be meeting all our debt obligations on time and there should be no concern about that.”

The probability of the country defaulting rose to 52.8% this week, which is the highest in the last 13 years. Pakistani currency was recently downgraded by two global credit rating agencies including Fitch Ratings and Moody’s Investors. The downgrading is based on the apprehension that in the wake of the recent catastrophic floods, causing over $30 billion losses, Pakistan’s capacity to pay back the debts is very week.

Ahmed continued, “Pakistan received a $1.5 billion loan from the Asian Development Bank (ADB) recently. Additional inflows from some other multilateral and bilateral institutions including the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) are also expected soon.”

“These inflows not only help meet our debt obligations but also improve our foreign exchange reserves.” Earlier, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) revived its $6.5 billion loan program for Pakistan through a combined seventh and eighth review of the economy on August 29, 2022,” he said.

According to Ahmed, “So far, over 10,000 non-resident Pakistanis from across the globe have invested $35 million (Rs7.8 billion) in stocks of companies listed at the PSX.”

“While investment via RDA into the stock exchange has been relatively subdued, amounting to around only $35 million,” he added, “investments into the conventional and Shariah-compliant Naya Pakistan certificates through RDA stood at $1.7 billion and $1.6 billion respectively.”

“Over 484,000 RDAs have been opened by non-resident Pakistanis from 175 countries across the world. The total inflows from these RDAs stand at around $5.28 billion. The launch of the Roshan Equity Investment (at the PSX) was made at an opportune time,” he added.

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