The Economic Affairs Division (EAD) has, contrary to its usual practice of releasing data on external loans procured by the 20 of each month, not released the data for July and August prompting speculation that the amounts are unusually large. Sukuk bonds, defined as debt equity, of about $1 billion, would be issued by mid-November.
The government had raised $1 billion in 2016-17 from floating Sukuk bonds. Official sources on condition of strict anonymity revealed to this correspondent that the country has received $230 million in short term high interest bearing loans in the first two months of 2017 (July-August): $77 million from Islamic Development Bank (IDB) in July and $153 million from Citibank in August. The government has budgeted $1.55 billion short-term loans from the IDB.
The country received $254.9 million foreign assistance from multilateral and bilateral donors in July 2017 including $77 million from IDB. It received $75 million from the World Bank for project financing. China released $71.5 million while Asian Development Bank (ADB) disbursed $28.8 million in July. This data is not uploaded on the EAD website but was shared with Business Recorder by an official on condition of anonymity.
The country received $10.55 billion foreign assistance from multilateral and bilateral donors and surpassed the budgeted estimates of $7.998 in financial year 2016-17, mainly because of $4.367 billion loans from foreign commercial banks against the budgeted estimates of $2.005 billion. The government has estimated foreign assistance of $8.3 billion for 2017-18 against $7.98 billion budgeted for 2016-17 which was later revised upward to $9.9 billion.
The government has budgeted $1billion from commercial banks for 2017-18 against $2.05 billion for 2016-17 which was later revised upward to $3.8 billion. The government has estimated budget assistance of $1.6 billion from China for 2017-18 against $572 million estimated for 2016-17 which was later revised to $1.3 billion. Under the head of loans $7.9 billion has been estimated for 2017-18 against the budgeted estimates of $7.5 billion for 2016-17 which was later revised to $9.2 billion. The government has budgeted $260 million under the head of grants for fiscal year 2017-18 against $446 million budgeted for 2016-17.
From sovereign bonds, the government has budgeted zero amount for 2017-18; however $1billion was estimated for 2016-17 but later revised to zero. The government has budgeted estimates of $1.2 billion from the Asian Development Bank (ADB) for 2017-18 against $1.048 billion for 2016-17 which was later revised to $1.6 billion.
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