According to the Ministry of Finance, every single Pakistani is owing Rs95,000 in debt. The foreign debt and liabilities of Pakistan are currently standing at $58 billion which is around Rs6.11 trillion. This information was transmitted to National Assembly on Friday by the finance ministry.

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Details of the debt

According to the document which was present in the assembly by the ministry, Pakistan’s domestic debt stood at Rs12.31 trillion or $117 billion as of 31st December 2016. As per the statistics, each Pakistan is now liable to pay Rs94,890 in debt.

The document further revealed that the government borrowed Rs819.1 billion from banks from 1st July 2016 to 31st March 2017. The government took a mammoth loan of Rs734.62 billion from the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) out of the aforementioned amount. Rest of the Rs84.50 billion were borrowed from commercial banks.

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It is noteworthy to mention that the government of former Prime Minister of Pakistan Nawaz Sharif secured new loans of colossal $35 billion during the 4-year period. The reason of borrowing such hefty amount was to repay the maturing debts. Moreover, another reason was to keep the foreign reserves at a steady level to give the investors a notion that there is economic stability in Pakistan.

Half of the total loans of roughly $17 billion which was borrowed in the last four years was used to repay the previous debt; as stated in the finance ministry’s document. Rest of the $18 billion were added by the government in Pakistan’s total external debt and liabilities. As a result, it became the highest external debt amount by any government during its tenure.

Source: ET