Pakistan borrows US $500 million from China

Pakistan has contracted another foreign commercial loan of USD 500 million from the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) to shore up its depleting reserves.

The Express Tribune reported that the with new borrowing the Chinese financial institution's contribution to supporting a strong rupee against the US dollar increased to USD 1 billion in just three months.

It further reported quoting sources in the finance ministry that the government contracted the loan on January 15 at a rate in the range of 4.5%.

In January, the country took a total of USD 704 million worth of new loans, taking foreign borrowings to USD 6.6 billion in just seven months of this fiscal year, sources said.

The foreign loans were equal to 86% of the annual budgetary estimates that parliament had approved in June last year. This suggests that foreign loans for the second consecutive year may cross USD 10 billion.

China was the single largest lender that gave a total of USD 1.6 billion, which was equal to one-fourth of the total foreign loans Pakistan has received in the last seven months.

Beijing also gave roughly USD 610 million for project financing during the first seven months.

In terms of source, sovereign bonds were the single largest source after Islamabad raised USD 2.5 billion in November, which contributed roughly 38% to total foreign loans.

It was the second loan that the ICBC has given to Pakistan to support its diminishing foreign currency reserves, which are largely used to defend a strong rupee and finance the trade deficit. The ICBC had also given USD 500 million in October last year.

Sources in the State Bank of Pakistan said that it was still intervening in the exchange market to keep the dollar-rupee parity at current level.

In December, the central bank let the rupee depreciate by 5.2% against the US dollar. But it was still far less than the International Monetary Fund's assessment of the real value of the rupee.

With fresh foreign loans, the total foreign commercial borrowings in the first seven months of this fiscal year have increased to USD 1.8 billion, said the sources. The finance ministry had informed parliament in June last year that it would obtain USD 1 billion as commercial loans during 2017-18 that will end on June 30. However, it has already breached the limit with five months remaining.

So far, Citibank has given USD 267 million, Credit Suisse AG loaned USD 255 million, Standard Chartered Bank London USD 200 million and Dubai Bank USD 55.9 million. The share of foreign commercial banks in total loans stood at 27%.

The loans are obtained to stop the downward slide of the official foreign currency reserves that currently stand at USD 12.8 billion even after issuing USD 2.5 billion worth of sovereign bonds in November.

The ministry is trying in vain to stop the reserves from slipping below the two-and-a-half-month import bill cover, which at current value of the import bill stands at USD 12.3 billion.

Official foreign currency reserves have depleted by USD 3.5 billion since July. The current account deficit during the first half of the fiscal year widened to over USD 7.5 billion.

Pakistan's total external debt and liabilities as of December 2017 stood at USD 88.9 billion, higher by USD 5.8 billion or 6.9% over six months ago.

The main increase came by issuing sovereign bonds and taking expensive commercial loans. In the first half, debt obligated by issuing NSukuk and Eurobonds increased by 52 per cent to USD 7.3 billion.