IMF expects Pakistan’s debt to be around Rs 82trn by end of this fiscal

ISLAMABAD: The International Monetary Fund (IMF) estimates that Pakistan’s rising debt might be close to Rs 82 trillion by the end of the ongoing financial year ending on June 30, 2024.

The IMF staff has also assessed that the pace of accumulation of total public debt and liabilities would continue to persist, which might go up to Rs 92.24 trillion in FY2024-25.

Pakistan and the IMF have struck a staff-level agreement by evolving consensus on the Memorandum of Economic and Financial Policies (MEFP) for presentation before the Fund’s Executive Board for release of $700 million tranche under the $3 billion Standby Arrangement (SBA) programme.

The fiscal framework agreed between the two sides showed that the general government and government guaranteed debt, including the IMF’s, was estimated to rise up to Rs 81.836 billion till end of June 2024, which stood at Rs 77.9 trillion till end of September 2023.

The total public debt and liabilities stood at Rs 68 trillion in FY22-23. This data on public debt and liabilities shows that it would go up by Rs 11.8 trillion in the current fiscal year.

The total public debt and liabilities would go up manifold mainly because of the rising fiscal deficit and the Fund estimated that fiscal deficit would escalate by Rs 8.227 trillion for the current fiscal year, equivalent to 7.8 percent of GDP.

Despite hectic efforts of the government to convince the IMF for projecting lower debt servicing, the IMF did not accept the stance of the government and projected the debt servicing on domestic and external loans standing at Rs 8.627 trillion for the current fiscal year. The News

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