Pakistan secures $800mn in debt relief.

Pakistan has so far secured $800 million worth of debt freeze deals from 14 members of the richest club of G-20 countries, as it still awaits ratification by remaining six countries including Saudi Arabia and Japan involving $1 billion transactions.

Pakistan along with 76 other poor African countries had qualified for the G-20 debt relief initiative, announced in April this year for May-December 2020 period, to combat the adverse impacts of the pandemic.

During the past seven months 14 countries ratified their agreements with Pakistan, which has provided fiscal space of $800 million to Islamabad for the time being, according to the government sources. In addition to these 14 nations, two other countries had also approached to extend debt relief to Pakistan.

The official documents showed that Pakistan has not yet finalised the debt rescheduling modalities with Japan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and the United Kingdom.

Although these six countries have not yet ratified the debt relief related agreements, these G-20 members are expected to conclude the deal before end of next month, said a senior official of the Ministry of Economic Affairs while responding to a question. He said that Pakistan was not making repayments to these six countries too, on the understanding that these members would eventually sign-off the deals.

Pakistan was expecting a total $1.8 billion temporary debt relief from the members of G-20 nations for May-December 2020 period, according to the Ministry of Economic Affairs. This included $1.47 billion principal loans repayments and $323 million...