Pakistan wants to reschedule bilateral loans of $27 billion: Ishaq Dar

• Federal Finance Minister Senator Ishaq Dar said that there is no possibility of Pakistan defaulting.
• Ishaq Dar gave an interview to Reuters news agency in which he said that Pakistan is willing to reschedule Paris Club debts  which are mostly owed to China.
• He said multilateral development banks and international donors have been quite flexible with ways to meet the country’s external financing needs

WASINGTON: Federal Finance Minister Senator Ishaq Dar has said that there is no possibility of Pakistan defaulting, however, Pakistan wants to reschedule bilateral loans of 27 billion dollars.

Finance Minister Ishaq Dar gave an interview with the Reuters news agency in which he said that Pakistan is willing to reschedule Paris Club debts worth about $27 billion, which are mostly owed to China.

Ishaq Dar rejected the possibility of renegotiating extended the maturity date of defaulted bonds on Pakistan’s debt or Pakistan’s existing International Monetary Fund programme.

He said multilateral development banks and international donors have been quite flexible with ways to meet the country’s external financing needs of about $32 billion following the devastating floods.
He said that Pakistan will try to reorganize but this work cannot be done overnight and it may take three years.

It should be noted that Ishaq Dar, who took over the post of finance for the fourth time in his career last month, was present in Washington for the meetings of the International Monetary Fund(IMF) and the World Bank. He held important meetings with officials of the IMF and WB.

The US Deputy Secretary of State met with Ishaq Dar, during which he expressed his solidarity over the floods in Pakistan and expressed his determination to continue the assistance of Pakistan by the US.
On the other hand, Finance Minister Ishaq Dar had a meeting with IMF Middle East Director Jihad Azour during which he expressed his sympathy for the damages caused by the floods. During the meeting, full support was assured by the IMF.

Later, Ishaq Dar met CEO Saudi Development Fund Sultan Abdul Rehman Al Murshid in Washington during which he assured all possible cooperation with Pakistan.

Apart from this, the Finance Minister had a meeting with the British Minister of State for Commonwealth Vicky Ford in Washington.

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During the meeting, Ishaq Dar expressed his gratitude for the assistance from Britain to deal with the flood challenge, while the British minister expressed his determination to continue cooperation with Pakistan in difficult times and also discussed the further expansion of bilateral cooperation between the two countries.