Pakistan''s external debt has increased by $730 million during 2004-05, touching $34.037 billion. According to the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) data released on Saturday, total external debt on June 30, 2005 was $34.037 billion as against $33.307 billion last year.
The bank''s figures further show that the country''s public and publicly guaranteed debt has been on the rise for the last three consecutive years. It was $31.084 billion on June 30, 2005 as compared to $29.875 billion last year.
However, the break-up of the public and publicly guaranteed, medium- and long-term debt (greater than one year) has also been on the rise for the last three years. During last financial year ended June 30, 2005, it was $30.813 billion as compared to $29.853 billion on June 2004.
The data further depict that medium-, long-term and multilateral debt has increased about one billion dollar over the previous year (from $14.349 billion to $15.358 billion), followed by Euro bonds/Saindak bonds, which increased to $1.266 billion during 2005, as it was $824 million during 2004.
However, the Paris Club debt has slightly decreased to $13.018 billion during 2005 from $13.565 billion during 2004. Besides, military debt decreased about $16 million, which was $204 million during year ended June 30, 2004.
Commercial loans/credits also declined during 2004-05 to $182 million from $198 million a year ago.
The significant feature of the SBP data was that short-term external debt (less than one year) from Islamic Development Bank (IDB) increased about 12 times during the year under study, which was $271 million during 2005 as compared to $22 million last year.
The private non-guaranteed debts (greater than one year) during the year ended June 30 2005 has decreased to $1.342 billion as compared to $1.67 billion year ended June 2004.
The data also depict a decline of about $151 million in the International Monetary Fund (IMF) debt. During 2005, it was $1.611 billion compared to $1.762 billion in 2004.