Ishaq Dar, Pakistan’s finance minister, announced on Wednesday that the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) will provide $500 million in co-financing for a development programme in Pakistan.
As the cash-strapped country frantically seeks money to lessen the impact of floods, Dar stated in a tweet that “These funds will be received by the State Bank of Pakistan within November 2022.”
An Asian Development Bank (ADB) finance programme called BRACE (Building Resilience with Active Counter cyclical Expenditures Program) seeks to mitigate the social effects of economic crisis.
The money would support the central bank’s foreign exchange holdings, which as of October 28 were valued at $8,912.9 million and could cover one month’s worth of imports.
The country needs the reserves in the current situation because it has to import food as a result of the catastrophic floods that destroyed the agricultural crops and caused damages worth over $30 billion.
The Asian Development Bank (ADB) also approved $1.5 billion in financing in October to assist Pakistan in providing social protection, fostering food security, and assisting employment for its citizens despite devastating floods and disruptions to the world’s supply chains.
The government’s $2.3 billion counter cyclical development expenditure program, which is intended to lessen the effects of external shocks like the Russian invasion of Ukraine, will benefit from the loan, which was provided under ADB’s BRACE program.
The World Bank confirmed that Pakistan had fulfilled all requirements for the Resilient Institution for Sustainable Economy (RISE-II) program, and the country is now likely to receive a $450 million loan.
