Pakistan gets ‘encouraging response’ from China over debt reprofiling talks, says Aurangzeb
ISLAMABAD ( WEB NEWS )
Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb says Pakistan is getting an “encouraging” response from China over its request to reprofile power sector debt.
He said Pakistani authorities had just started the discussion and the response was encouraging.
Speaking to a foreign media outlet, the minister made it clear “these are early days in terms of those negotiations”.
According to a report, this signalled “potentially more breathing room” for the country as it looked towards “increasing maturities for debt taken to build power plants and create space to lower electricity prices”.
In July last, it was told the finance minister was negotiating with Chinese officials over reprofiling power sector debt alongside structural reforms suggested by the IMF.
The government and the Fund agreed on the 37-month loan programme in July which, according to the Fund, was subject to obtaining “timely confirmation of necessary financing assurances from Pakistan’s development and bilateral partners”.
The report said China had currently rolled over debt of $16 billion out of $26bn in the current fiscal year started in July.
Aurangzeb also said the government also planned to initiate discussions on obtaining additional financing from the IMF through its climate resilience fund.
Minister Aurangzeb said the government knew it had no role in business and that it must provide an enabling environment to support the private sector.