Bharat Rakshak

yensoy wrote:This is the Paki game.

Pak fauj provides cover for the autocrats in UAE, Saudi. They provide a professional security service, with no ideology or political affiliation and only serve those already in power.

In turn, these autocrats hand periodic payments to Pakistan in the form of aid, grants, deposits and deferred oil payment facilities.

“We are changing the way we provide assistance and development assistance,” Saudi Finance Minister Mohammed Al-Jadaan said Wednesday at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

“We used to give direct grants and deposits without strings attached and we are changing that,” Al-Jadaan said during a panel discussion that included IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva. “We are working with multilateral institutions to actually say we need to see reforms.”

Free Cashmere from India!!! Free Palestine from Israel!!! Free Oil from Saudi Arabia!!!

Anujan wrote: Saudi Arabia Says Days of Unconditional Foreign Aid Are Now Over


https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... e-now-over

Anujan wrote:

yensoy wrote:This is the Paki game.
Pak fauj provides cover for the autocrats in UAE, Saudi. They provide a professional security service, with no ideology or political affiliation and only serve those already in power.
In turn, these autocrats hand periodic payments to Pakistan in the form of aid, grants, deposits and deferred oil payment facilities.

Saudi Arabia Says Days of Unconditional Foreign Aid Are Now Over

The World Bank has delayed the approval of two loans for Pakistan worth $ 1.1 billion until the next fiscal year pending some steps on the country’s energy debt and tariffs, a finance ministry source told Reuters on Wednesday.

The approval of the loans have been pending since June, said the source, declining to be named as they were not authorised to talk to the media. Pakistan’s next fiscal year starts in April.

“The major issue is the circular debt management plan in the energy sector and tariff revision,” said the source. “These actions are pending on our side.” The World Bank and the finance ministry did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Manish_P wrote:A-o-A Happy New (fiscal) year gift for Al Bakistan from World Bank

Yawn - World Bank delays approval of $1.1bn for Pakistan

In a late-night tweet, he stated, “Abu Dhabi Fund for Development (ADFD) has rolled over their deposit of $2 billion with State Bank of Pakistan, as discussed by [PM Shehbaz Sharif] with His Highness the President of UAE during last week’s official visit.

“Long live Pak-UAE friendship!”

The UAE’s earlier loan of $2bn was scheduled to become due for repayment in February and March.

madhu wrote: however there is some good news too
UAE rolls over $2bn loan, confirms Dar

In a late-night tweet, he stated, “Abu Dhabi Fund for Development (ADFD) has rolled over their deposit of $2 billion with State Bank of Pakistan, as discussed by [PM Shehbaz Sharif] with His Highness the President of UAE during last week’s official visit.

“Long live Pak-UAE friendship!”

The UAE’s earlier loan of $2bn was scheduled to become due for repayment in February and March.

Manish_P wrote:
World Bank delays approval of $1.1bn for Pakistan

Pakistan has ordered World Bank to delay its deposit of $1.1Bn to next year

Pakistan is still reeling from devastating floods that have led to losses of more than $30 billion.

Dilbu wrote:The roll over of loan is a good method to keep helping Bakis without spending any additional dime. When the time comes for repayment just say keep it for another couple of years. Everyone khush including BRF as no additional money is coming in for TSP. They are still in the same pot getting cooked, this time a little bit faster.

Dilbu wrote:The roll over of loan is a good method to keep helping Bakis without spending any additional dime. When the time comes for repayment just say keep it for another couple of years. Everyone khush including BRF as no additional money is coming in for TSP. They are still in the same pot getting cooked, this time a little bit faster.

Bart S wrote:

Dilbu wrote:The roll over of loan is a good method to keep helping Bakis without spending any additional dime. When the time comes for repayment just say keep it for another couple of years. Everyone khush including BRF as no additional money is coming in for TSP. They are still in the same pot getting cooked, this time a little bit faster.

It's also the only thing that they can do (short of forcing Pakistan to default) since the Pakis can't really pay back the loan even if they don't roll it over.

yensoy wrote:

Bart S wrote: It's also the only thing that they can do (short of forcing Pakistan to default) since the Pakis can't really pay back the loan even if they don't roll it over.

Precisely! It's not like they can get the Pakis to pay up. So instead of recognizing the loss, roll over the loan. BTW, Pakis are paying interest on these loans in time, so in that sense their money is working.

Conveying its willingness to accept all the four major conditions of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the government on Thursday requested the lender to send its mission to Pakistan at the earliest, preferably next week, to conclude a long-awaited agreement to revive the loan programme.

“We have completed our workings on all four areas on the basis of our interactions on the sidelines of the Geneva conference,” a senior member of the government told Dawn after weeklong consultations, including at least two sessions presided over by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif through a video link from Lahore.

chetak wrote: The pakis owe the world about $100 billion and have to repay $21bn to foreign lenders during the current fiscal year.

‘War on terror’ has cost Pakistan more than $150bn in losses since 9/11, officials say

partha wrote:

chetak wrote: The pakis owe the world about $100 billion and have to repay $21bn to foreign lenders during the current fiscal year.

If you ask the Pakis, it's the world which owes Pakistan $50 billion. Economic loss due to war on terror is apparently $150 billion so Pakis are supposed to get $50 billion.

https://www.arabnews.com/node/1927131/world

‘War on terror’ has cost Pakistan more than $150bn in losses since 9/11, officials say

Anujan wrote:https://www.dawn.com/news/1732581/govt- ... -programme

Govt ready to meet all IMF demands to revive loan programme

Govt ready to discuss rupee free float with IMF
Invites global lender for negotiations on ‘thorny' issues

all export cargoes could come to a halt as foreign shipping lines are considering stopping their services for the country after banks stopped remitting freight charges to them due to a lack of dollar availability, according to a media report on Saturday.

Apart from bordering countries, almost all the international logistics from Pakistan are catered by sea and any disruption could create serious issues for the country's international trade, Pakistan Ship's Agents Association (PSAA) chairman Abdul Rauf warned Finance Minister Ishaq Dar through a letter. "If the international trade is stopped the economic situation will worsen," the association warned, adding that the foreign shipping lines are already considering winding up their services in Pakistan due to reduced cargo volumes.

Rauf requested the ministries and departments concerned to intervene to ensure continuity in Pakistan's seaborne trade by allowing outward remittance of surplus freight amounts to respective foreign shipping lines forthwith. "Due to discontinuation of outward remittance of surplus freight amounts to respective foreign shipping lines, was hampering Pakistan's seaborne trade which is heavily dependent on foreign shipping lines," the letter added.

The annual freight bill of Pakistan is around USD 5 billion, and foreign companies receive the charges in international currencies mainly the "greenback".

Pakistan's foreign exchange reserves had dwindled rapidly to over USD 4 billion in recent weeks, creating fear the country may default and prompting the SBP to apply strict control over foreign payments.

vimal wrote:Pakistan To Pay For Russian Energy Purchases In ‘Currency Of Friendly Countries’: Russian Official

Mollick.R wrote:Foreign shipping lines may stop services for cash-strapped Pakistan: Report

all export cargoes could come to a halt as foreign shipping lines are considering stopping their services for the country after banks stopped remitting freight charges to them due to a lack of dollar availability, according to a media report on Saturday.

Read the Full News Report From Here.....

https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/ne ... 195609.cms

The ground reality is that our economy is on the brink. We have three weeks of import cover. We have two weeks of petrol, a month of diesel and a month of steel. We are short on x-ray films and life-saving drugs. There are $5 billion worth of pending LCs. Question: What really went wrong? Answer: Politics has always trumped economics. Political considerations have always been more important than economic ones. Political factors have always taken precedence over economic ones.

Our economy is now on the brink due to an unsustainable trade deficit, an extremely high budget deficit, high levels of indebtedness, inflation, and a weakening currency. The root cause of these issues is that politics has always overridden economic considerations, leading to decisions that prioritize political goals over long-term economic stability.

Egypt is a prime example of a country where politics has consistently overridden economic considerations, resulting in disastrous consequences. Other examples include Sri Lanka, Venezuela, North Korea, Zimbabwe, Lebanon, and Argentina, where political considerations have led to economic mismanagement and financial difficulties.

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan – for the first time in its peacetime history – is on the verge of a sovereign default. While this is due to a host of factors, the root of the problem lies in imprudent economic and debt policies – in only 22 years, the nation’s gross public debt has increased over 1500%.

Since the year 2000, every successive government – irrespective of being a military dictatorship, civilian or hybrid regime – has almost doubled the country’s public debt pile at the end of their political tenure. In 2000, Pakistan’s gross public debt was Rs3.1 trillion. Statistics from the Ministry of Finance show that by the time General retired Pervez Musharraf’s dictatorship ended in 2008, Pakistan’s gross public debt had jumped to Rs6.1 trillion – an increase of 100% in the span of eight years.

By June 2013, Pakistan’s public debt had mushroomed to Rs14.3 trillion – an increase of 130% in the five years of Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) being in power. By the time Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz’s (PML-N) tenure ended, from 2013 to May 2018, public debt had jumped to Rs25 trillion – an increase of 76%.

Then came the government of former Prime Minister Imran Khan from the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaaf (PTI), who vowed to lessen the debt burden to Rs20 trillion. At the end of his 43-month rule, however, public debt stood at Rs44.3 trillion – recording an increase of Rs19.3 trillion or 77% in less than four years.

Today, Pakistan’s total debt and liabilities have sky-rocketed to over Rs60 trillion. The nation added Rs12 trillion, or one-fourth of its total debt incurred in the past 74 years, in the diamond jubilee year.

The other deadly combination to exist in Pakistan is to have relatively well-off people and a poor government. The nation’s informal economy is generating huge amounts of wealth, particularly in the real-estate sector, creating demand for foreign goods that are being bought via increasingly pricey foreign loans – adding to the country’s foreign financing needs.

Over the years, Pakistan’s addiction to programme loans (read as non-project loans) also enabled it to run high budget deficits. Over time, however, this caused a shift in the debt structure and has now brought the country to the brink of a sovereign default – with multiple short-term foreign loans maturing one after another. These short-term loans are major contributors to the country’s external financing requirements increasing to unsustainable levels – now at around $32 to $34 billion every year for the next three years.

Since international aid and loans are being utilised in the budgetary framework of the economy, we have been noticing that the share of development expenditure, as of the percentage of GDP, has been reduced from an average of 8% to 3% over the last couple of decades, according to Dr Bengali’s research. This means that the aid given has not literally been used for the development sector, but has instead been unwisely used to support the balance of payments and debt serving of expensive loans, defence and public administration, and subsidies in public services.

Besides, expenses on public administration and defence were not decreased, despite the fact that successive governments could have moved to curtail them. If we look at public finance, hardly any money from the tax revenue has been spent on health, housing, education, transport or the development of agricultural and physical infrastructure.

The practice of signing subsidy cheques in favourof industrialists, and even under the Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP), has to end now. And industrialists must be told to either compete with the world or wind up their businesses.

Similarly, the tax havens must end. Traders must be brought into the tax net and owning more than two plots of land (for more than five years) should be banned – to divert the nation’s resources towards productive sectors of the economy.

There should no more be tax amnesty schemes and the non-combative defence budget should be curtailed. All businesses, owned by the military or civilians, should be brought into the tax net.

Painful decisions have to be made, if Pakistan wants to be seen as a responsible nation in the global community. While the western powers have waited for years to see Pakistan reach its dead-end – regrettably though, we’re here because of our own faults.

ISLAMABAD: Amid reluctance to opt for debt restructuring, interest expenses have shot-up significantly to Rs2.57 trillion during the first half of this fiscal year. This equals to 65% of the annual debt servicing budget and is forcing the government to cut out its other expenses – except those on defence.

Sources in the Ministry of Finance told The Express Tribune that during the July-December period of the current fiscal year, there was an alarming increase of 77% in the cost of interest on the federal government debt stock.

The fresh provisional details suggest that, due to the precarious situation, there has been a cumulative reduction of 15% in all other non-development expenditures, excluding defence. The development expenses were slashed by 50% to create room for other expenses, according to government sources.

The finance ministry paid about Rs2.57 trillion in interest costs, up by Rs1.1 trillion or 77%, according to the sources. For the current fiscal year, the government had budgeted Rs3.95 trillion for interest expenses but 65% of it has been consumed in just six months.

According to sources, excluding military pensions and expenses on the armed forces development programme, Rs638 billion was spent on defence in six months – Rs118 billion or nearly 23% more than last year. The annual stated defence budget is Rs1.563 trillion and six-month spending is in line with the allocation.

With a net income of Rs2.5 trillion, accumulative spending on debt servicing and defence jumped over Rs3.2 trillion – 128% or Rs708 billion more than the government’s net income – suggesting that Pakistan will remain debt trapped because even though tax collection has increased, expenses are not being curtailed.

Compared to the huge spending of Rs3.2 trillion on debt servicing and defence, only Rs147 billion was spent on development. The spending on development is Rs141 billion or 49% less than that in the previous fiscal year. All the other expenses of the government amounted to Rs1.3 trillion, also down by Rs225 billion or 15%.

Under the IMF programme, Pakistan has committed to convert the primary deficit, calculated after excluding interest payments, into a surplus of 0.2% of GDP, down from last fiscal year’s 3.6%. As a result of uncontrolled spending, however, the government will miss the deficit target agreed upon with the IMF.

Dilbu wrote:Rs3.2 trillion spent on just debt servicing, defence

Compared to the huge spending of Rs3.2 trillion on debt servicing and defence, only Rs147 billion was spent on development. The spending on development is Rs141 billion or 49% less than that in the previous fiscal year. All the other expenses of the government amounted to Rs1.3 trillion, also down by Rs225 billion or 15%.