UAE Rolls Over Payment of $2 Billion Debt to Pakistan

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has rolled over the payment of a loan of $2 billion for another year at Pakistan’s request. The Ministry of Finance has confirmed this development to ProPakistani. Pakistan had requested its friendly countries, including Saudi Arabia, China, and the UAE, for soft loans to boost its depleting forex reserves, to which the UAE had complied in 2019 and deposited $2 billion in the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) as safe deposits. The loan payment was due in March 2022, and the former Minister for Finance, Shaukat Tarin, had requested his Emirati counterpart to roll over the loan payment for a year. The Ministry of Finance officials stated that the UAE had approved the request. According to officials, the rollover of the Emirati loan will ease pressure on the external front as the SBP’s reserves have reached a 20-month low to touch the $12 billion mark. They said that the request was made to maintain Pakistan’s growing trade deficit and balance of payments. Last week, China had also rolled over a loan of $2 billion at Pakistan’s request, and the officials added that another payment of a commercial loan of $2.2 billion is likely to be delayed.