Several federal ministers, including the Federal Finance Minister Asad Umar, held press conferences subsequent to the return of the Imran Khan-led delegation from an official visit to China, claiming that an extremely favourable Chinese package to Pakistan, including balance of payment support matching or exceeding Saudi Arabia's 3 billion dollars and doubling of existing exports to China (amounting to around 1 to 1.2 billion dollars), had been assured by senior Chinese leadership; and that a Pakistani team is in China to iron out the modalities of the agreed package, which, the country was told, is imminent.
A Business Recorder exclusive however reveals that the Pakistani team has returned without an agreement on the package and, equally disturbingly, that the Saudi package has also not yet been disbursed. In other words, the statement by Umar that Pakistan no longer has a balance of payment issue is not yet applicable, as neither of the two packages has been realized yet. This is not to say that China and Saudi Arabia are revisiting their earlier offers and/or waiting for Pakistan to deliver on its side of the bargain but that when in government it is better not to count one's chickens before they are hatched. The prime minister and the finance minister have never previously held a government position and, therefore, may not be aware that there can be many a slip between the cup and the lip particularly as far as foreign assistance is concerned.
However, with respect to expectations of the speed of the release of Chinese assistance, the Khan administration may have been wrongly guided by a set of senior bureaucrats in key positions during previous administrations and who, at worst, may have been politicized (a charge levelled against them by Imran Khan recently) and, at best, may be unaware of what the Chinese require before they extend assistance for balance of payment support as this would be a first for Pakistan. The Pakistani bureaucracy has experience in dealing with assistance from the West, including the United States, and the modus operandi of Western assistance is a roadmap (in the form of a standard set of reform conditions for different ailing sectors) formulated in cooperation with multilaterals. China in contrast may have been seeking a set of homegrown out of the box time-bound structural benchmarks designed to turn the economy around which have not yet been finalized by the Khan administration as not a single task force has so far completed its work.
It is improbable that China would extend assistance on absolutely no economic-related terms and conditions like Saudi Arabia because that is not the way China operates as it would be tantamount to throwing good money after bad. The Khan administration would therefore need to reenergize its 10 to 12 task forces to complete their recommendations as soon as possible, have them approved by the cabinet and then proceed to share them with China prior to implementation.
China and Saudi Arabia typically do not announce their assistance package to any country and needless to add the claims of assistance from these two friendly countries emanated from the Pakistani leadership. It may be recalled that the then Finance Minister Ishaq Dar refused to confirm on the floor of the House that the 1.5 billion dollar gift to Pakistan for balance of payment support was from the Saudi government. Additionally, China's total lending to Pakistan during the PML-N administration was calculated from Economic Affairs Division website. Thus bragging of the amount of assistance from these two countries before it has been received is simply taking on an unnecessary aggravation.
Be that as it may and erring on the side of optimism, the Saudi decision to park 3 billion dollars in the State Bank of Pakistan for one year as balance of payment support is probably in the works given that it has been only about three weeks since Prime Minister Khan returned from his second Saudi tour. And Chinese assistance too would be forthcoming as soon as Pakistan presents a clear and coherent roadmap to reform its numerous ailing sectors.