WASHINGTON:
Pakistan has made a request to China to increase its existing 10 billion yuan exchange line ($ 1.4 billion), said finance minister Muhammad Aurangzeb, adding that he expected the country to launch a panda surety before the end of the year.
Pakistan already has an existing 30 billion exchange line, told Reuters Aurangzeb in an interview on the sidelines of the International Monetary Fund and Spring Meetings of the World Bank group in Washington.
“From our point of view, reaching 40 billion in Renminbi would be a good place to head towards … We have just made this request,” said Aurangzeb.
The Chinese central bank has favored currency exchange lines with a series of emerging savings, including Argentina and Sri Lanka.
Pakistan has also made progress in the issue of its first panda obligation – a debt issued on the China’s domestic bond market, labeled in Yuan. Discussions with the presidents of the Asian Investment Bank in infrastructure (AIIB) and the Asian Development Bank (BAD) – both lenders who are online to provide credit improvements for the problem – had been constructive, he said.
“We want to diversify our loan base and we have made good progress around that-we hope that during this calendar year, we can make an initial impression,” he said.
Meanwhile, Aurangzeb expected the IMF executive council to disconnect at the beginning of May according to the staff level agreement on its new $ 1.3 billion arrangement as part of a climate resilience loan program as well as the first examination of the rescue program of $ 7 billion in progress.
Obtaining the green light from the IMF board of directors would trigger a billion dollars as part of the program, which the country obtained in 2024 and played a key role in the stabilization of the economy of Pakistan.
Asked about the economic benefits of tensions with India after the murder of 26 men on a tourist site earlier this month, Aurangzeb said that it “was not going to be useful”.
Aurangzeb estimated the growth of around 3% during the current financial year which ends in June 2025 and in the range of 4 to 5% next year, in order to hit 6% thereafter.
