ISLAMABAD: The government has extended over Rs455 billion guarantees to the public sector enterprises (PSEs) during the last one year from December 2019 to December 2020. According to the Finance Ministry’s debt bulletin, outstanding guarantees extended to the PSEs have increased to Rs2,409 billion in December 2020 from Rs1,950 billion in December 2019.

Domestic currency guarantees extended to the PSEs have increased from Rs1,467 billion in December 2019 to Rs1,622 billion in December 2020, showing an increase of Rs155 billion whereas, outstanding foreign currency guarantees extended to the PSEs have increased from Rs483 billion in December 2019 to Rs783 billion in December 2020, reflecting a rise of Rs300 billion.

The government issued fresh/rollover guarantees aggregating to Rs83 billion or 0.2 percent of the GDP to the three PSEs – Power Holding Company (PHL), the Pakistan International Airlines (Roosevelt) and the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) Rozgar Scheme.

The Power Holding Limited was provided new/rollover guarantees of Rs31 billon during July-December 2020, the PIA (Roosevelt) Rs23 billion, and the SBP (Rozgar Scheme) Rs30 billion.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2021