Pakistan authorities could materialise about $6.68 billion in foreign economic assistance  in the first eight months of the current fiscal year.   The low inflows were mainly because of the adverse international environment and the country’s poor credit rating, making international capital markets a no-go area for Pakistan. Therefore, Pakistan has deferred its plan to launch a $1.5bn Eurobond because of higher interest rates in the international capital markets and the country’s low credit rating.  the Economic Affairs Division (EAD) on Thursday said the country received $6.68bn in the first eight months of FY24 against its annual target of $17.62bn including $235m in grants.   the authorities  claim that better debt and trade management has reduced the current year’s foreign assistance requirements. Thus its target is now tentatively revised to around $11bn instead of the $17.62bn set in the 2023-24 budget for Foreign  Economic Assistance.     They are now predicting the current account deficit to be around $2bn instead of about $6bn budget estimate.        The EAD report showed that besides the $1.5bn in fresh bonds, the government had also budgeted another $4.5bn in foreign commercial loans for the current fiscal year but not materialised as the current account deficit declined. It may be noted that December 2023 had seen three larger disbursements by three major multilaterals — $638m by the World Bank, $469m by the Asian Development Bank and $255m on by the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB).The bulk — $2.6bn — of foreign loans reported by the EAD in eight months came from Saudi Arabia as a time deposit and oil facility followed by $1.375bn from the World Bank, $643m from ADB and a $508m guaranteed loan to Pakistan Air Force (PAF) by China National Aero-Technology Import & Export Corporation.The government had budgeted $22.8bn foreign assistance in FY23 but could materialise only $10.8bn throughout the year — about 46pc of the target — because of the suspension of the IMF programme, leaving a $11.8bn slippage, resulting in depletion of foreign exchange reserves. (ICE ISLAMABAD)

Fonte notizia: Dawn