According to Jamil Ahmed, Governor of the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP), there was no chance of an external default during the current fiscal year.
The State Bank has approved 30,000 letters of credit (LCs) in the range of $100,000 by October 31, 2022 and Pakistan was anticipated to receive $18–20 billion in the second half of the current fiscal year, Governor of the Central Bank said.
He said that although there were challenges with the influx of dollars there was no chance of an external default in the current fiscal year. However it will be challenging for dollars to arrive in the form of commercial loans and foreign bonds, he added.
Governor SBP also said that out of the entire amount needed for external debt the government had repaid $6 billion and received a rollover of $4 billion between January and June 2023.
According to him the current account deficit was $2.8 billion in the first four months of the current fiscal year and was projected to increase to $10 billion by June 30 of 2023.
The Central Bank’s Governor had earlier admitted that the business community was facing problems and unless the money will come from outside they could not release the money.
Briefing the National Assembly’s Standing Committee on Finance the Governor said that discussions were being held to roll over commercial loans of different countries of $8.3 billion, commercial loans of $1.1 billion have to be repaid and now Pakistan will have to repay loans of $4.5 billion instead of $ 13 billion.
