The government procured $514.55 million from foreign commercial banks (around 25 percent) of total external loans of $2.075 billion in the first three months (July-September) of 2019-20 and 50 percent more than the comparable period of last year ($1.042 billion).

This was revealed by the Economic Affairs Division (EAD) data released Tuesday.

The government budgeted foreign assistance of $12.957 billion for the current fiscal year including $2 billion foreign commercial loans. The country received $1.017 billion from multilaterals (excluding the first tranche release from the IMF) and $401.101 million bilateral assistance during July-September 2019-20.

Further $141.73 million were received under the head of Saudi Arabia-short term (Saudi oil facility) in the current fiscal year so far against the budgeted $3.2 billion.

According to EAD, the government borrowed $514.55 million from foreign commercial banks compared to $240 million during the same period of last year. Dubai Bank disbursed $193.05 million in September under a new arrangement signed on September, 24, 2019.

Citibank disbursed $148.2 million in August. The country borrowed $123.31 million from Dubai Bank out of total committed amount of $325 million and $50 million from a consortium of Credit Suisse out of its total commitment of $250 million in July.

China disbursed $261 million in the first three months of fiscal year 2019-20 including $91.46 million for the Havelian-Thakot road project, $122.64 million for the Sukkur-Multan motorway and $8.97 million for the Orange Line Metro project.

The Islamic Development Bank disbursed $303.68 million in the first three months out of the total of $1.1 billion budgeted for the current fiscal year.

Asian Development Bank (ADB) disbursed $552.16 million, United Kingdom (UK) $93.94 million, World Bank $137 million, International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) $23.31 million, USA $14.54 million and Japan $15.95 million in the first three months of current fiscal year.