News
Thursday, April 01, 2010
Country owes $50.7 bn in external debt, NA told
ISLAMABAD: The total amount of the country’s outstanding external debt had reached $50.7 billion due to fresh disbursement of foreign loans and exchange rate, Minister of State for Economic Affairs Hina Rabbani Khar told the National Assembly on Wednesday. To a question, the minister said the outstanding external debt was $38.6 billion in 2007, $44.4 billion in 2008, adding that it now stood at $50.7 billion. The basic reasons for the increase were the depreciation of dollar vis-à-vis other international currencies during the period, foreign disbursement of loan and the exchange rate. She told the House that the government was regularly paying back foreign loans according to their amortisation schedules. “For effective public debt management, the government has enacted Fiscal Responsibility and Debt Limitation Act 2005 under which the government pursues a sound fiscal and debt management policy so as to maintain its debt within prudent limits and follow the path of debt reduction,” she said. Hina said the government had taken various steps to reduce the outstanding amount of the loans, including the pre-payment of costly loans, getting loans written off and converting the outstanding loans of some countries into debt swap. app
Courtesy www.dailytimes.com.pk