State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) Governor Jameel Ahmad said that Pakistan will return a $1 billion international bond three days early, on December 2.
With the country amid an economic crisis and recuperating from disastrous floods that killed over 1,700 people, there is rising worry about Pakistan’s capacity to pay its external funding obligations.
According to local media, the bond repayment, due on December 5, totals $1.08bn, and multilateral and bilateral sources of money had been secured to ensure that the repayment would not impact foreign exchange reserves. According to him, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank was set to release $500 million on Tuesday.
As of November 18, Pakistan’s central bank reserves amounted to $7.8 billion, hardly enough to fund one month’s imports.
The reserve levels will depend on the realization of anticipated inflows and the rollover of loans from friendly countries. Still, he expressed confidence that the reserve figure would be “far higher” by June 30, 2023, the conclusion of the fiscal year.
Earlier this week, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) stated that Pakistan’s quick completion of a recovery plan following devasting floods is crucial for negotiations and sustained financial assistance from multilateral and bilateral partners.
Pakistan is now enrolled in an IMF bailout program, which started in 2019. Still, a date for the ninth review to release much-needed cash is pending, although the country is amidst a full-blown economic crisis, with decades-high inflation and low reserves.
The SBP hiked its benchmark policy rate by 100 basis points to 16% earlier today in an unanticipated step to prevent excessive inflation from becoming entrenched.
Finance Minister Ishaq Dar published a bogus Bloomberg infographic regarding the predicted default rate in emerging markets.
A few days ago, an local political leader published a highly dubious statistic of 93% as Pakistan’s one-year likelihood of defaulting on its debt. He stated that the outlet had placed Pakistan’s one-year probability of default at 10%.
 Governor Jameel Ahmad said that Pakistan will return a $1 billion international bond on December 2.){kind=link}