Pakistan seeks emergency 3b dollar Saudi cash injection
Pakistan on Wednesday requested Saudi Arabia to urgently provide 3 billion US dollar in cash after its foreign exchange reserves fell to a critically low level.
Finance Minister Ishaq Dar made the request during a meeting with Nawaf bin Said Al-Malki, the Saudi ambassador, according to his ministry's officials.
It was the second consecutive day when the Pakistan finance minister held meetings with foreign diplomats in his efforts to seek their financial support and also influence the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to soften its stance on releasing its 1.2 billion dollar tranche to the country.
Dar's request for the cash bailout of 3 billion US dollar was over and above the same amount of money rollover of the previous debt.
However, there is an urgency of the matter, as the country's foreign exchange reserves have fallen below the 7 billion dollar level for the first time since January 2019.
The present reserves stand at around 6.7 billion dollar, which is almost equal to 6.6 billion dollar on January 18, 2019.
The 6.7 billion dollar reserves are not enough to service the 8.8 billion dollar principal and interest payments during the January-March period of the current fiscal year, according to the sources.
In the first week of November, the finance minister Ishaq Dar had said Pakistan received 'assurances of a 13 billion dollar financial package from China and Saudi Arabia, including 5.7 billion dollar in fresh loans'.
They included 4.2 billion dollar from Saudi Arabia and 8.8 billion dollar from China.
.png "Advertisement")
