{"id":19580,"date":"2018-10-23T22:23:40","date_gmt":"2018-10-23T22:23:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=19580"},"modified":"2018-10-23T22:23:40","modified_gmt":"2018-10-23T22:23:40","slug":"saudi-arabia-pledges-6bn-to-pakistan-amid-economic-crisis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=19580","title":{"rendered":"Saudi Arabia pledges $6bn to Pakistan amid economic crisis"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Saudi Arabia has agreed to give Pakistan<\/a> $3bn for a period of one year as the South Asian country faces an economic crisis marked by a mounting balance of payments deficit and dwindling foreign currency reserves.<\/p>\n

The Gulf kingdom also pledged an additional loan worth up to $3bn in deferred payments for oil imports, Pakistan’s foreign ministry said in a statement<\/a> on Tuesday.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The agreement came during a visit by Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan<\/a> to Riyadh, where he met King Salman bin Abdulaziz and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Khan also attended a high-profile investment conference<\/a> that opened in the Saudi capital on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

“It was agreed Saudi Arabia will place a deposit of $3bn for a period of one year as balance of payment support,” Pakistan’s foreign ministry said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The additional deferred payment facility for oil imports will be in place for three years, which will be reviewed thereafter, the ministry stated.<\/p>\n

\n

PM\u2019s visit to Saudi Arabia: an MoU is signed between the Finance Minister @Asad_Umar<\/a> and the Saudi Finance Minister, Muhammad Abdullah Al-Jadaan. It has been agreed Saudi Arabia will place a deposit of USD 3 Billion for a period of one year as balance of payment support. pic.twitter.com\/Rm2fZDSYO7<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 PTI (@PTIofficial) October 23, 2018<\/a>\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Pakistan’s government, led by cricketer-turned-politician Khan, inherited a mountain of economic challenges when it came to power in July<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Before departing for Riyadh, Khan had said his country is “desperate” to shore up its foreign currency reserves, which are at a four-year low of\u00a0$8.4m<\/a>.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Pakistan is currently facing a balance-of-payments crisis – with a nearly $18bn deficit<\/a>, according to the latest figures by the State Bank of Pakistan, while its public sector debt stands at $75.3bn<\/a> – which is 27 percent of Pakistan’s gross domestic product.<\/p>\n

“The immediate concern for our government is to increase exports, bolster our foreign exchange reserves; getting Pakistanis to send remittances through the banking channels,” Khan said during a session at the Future Investment Initiative (FII) conference in Riyadh.<\/p>\n

“At the same time, clamping down on money laundering, which is a problem in most of the developing world.”<\/p>\n

Pakistan has a close economic and strategic relationship with Saudi Arabia, which is home to at least 1.9 million Pakistani expatriate workers.<\/p>\n

The kingdom tops the list of countries with the highest remittances sent to Pakistan.<\/p>\n

IMF talks<\/strong><\/h2>\n

The agreement comes weeks after Pakistan’s Finance Minister Asad Umar announced that Islamabad had requested talks<\/a> with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in an attempt to alleviate the economic crisis.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

An IMF team is due to visit Pakistan to kick-start the negotiations on November 7.\u00a0<\/p>\n

If an assistance package is agreed on, it would be Pakistan’s second IMF bailout in five years, and its 13th since the late 1980s.<\/p>\n

During his address at the business summit in Riyadh, Khan confirmed that Pakistan was also in talks with the IMF for financial assistance.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“Right now we need loans to go through this difficult period of servicing our debts,” said Khan.<\/p>\n

“We are hoping to do a bit of both – to get some loans from the IMF and friendly governments,” he added, “We have a tough period for the next three to six months.”<\/p>\n

The Riyadh summit, nicknamed “Davos in the desert”, has been overshadowed by growing global outrage over the murder of journalist and Saudi government critic Jamal Khashoggi.<\/p>\n

Leading policymakers and corporate chiefs have shunned the conference<\/a> in response to the death of Khashoggi<\/a> at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul\u00a0 – a scandal that has tipped Riyadh into a diplomatic crisis.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

\n SOURCE:
\n Al Jazeera and news agencies<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Saudi Arabia has agreed to give Pakistan $3bn for a period of one year as the South Asian country faces an economic crisis marked by a mounting balance of payments deficit and dwindling foreign currency reserves. The Gulf kingdom also pledged an additional loan worth up to $3bn in deferred payments for oil imports, Pakistan’s…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":19581,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19580","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19580","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19580"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19580\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/19581"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19580"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19580"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19580"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}