Pakistan to repay $1bn bond early: SBP chief

• SBP chief says funding has been lined up from multilateral, bilateral sources.
• Ahmad says reserve levels will depend on continued realisation of expected inflows.
• Ishaq Dar assures Pakistan will honour its financial commitments on time.

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan will repay a $1 billion international bond on December 2, three days before its due date, the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) Governor Jameel Ahmad told a briefing on Friday.

There has been growing uncertainty about the ability of Pakistan to meet external financing obligations with the country in the midst of an economic crisis and recovering from devastating floods that killed over 1,700 people.

The bond repayment, which matures on December 5, totals $1.08 billion, Ahmad told a briefing, according to two analysts who were present.

Ahmad added that funding has been lined up from multilateral and bilateral sources to ensure the repayment would not affect foreign exchange reserves. An immediate inflow of $500 million was expected next week on Tuesday from the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, he said.

Pakistan's reserves with the central bank stood at $7.8 billion as of November 18, barely enough to cover a month's imports.

Ahmad said reserve levels will depend on the continued realisation of expected inflows and rollover of loans from friendly countries, but added he was confident the reserve figure will be "much higher" by the end of the financial year in June 2023.

He told the briefing he expects external financing requirements would be met on time because of inflows from international lenders. He pointed out that, despite payments of $1.8 billion in November, reserves remained stable.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) said earlier this week that Pakistan's timely finalisation of a recovery plan from devastating floods is essential to support discussions and continued financial support from multilateral and bilateral partners.

Pakistan is currently in an IMF bailout programme, which it entered in 2019, but a firm date for the ninth review to release much-needed funds is pending even as it battles a full-blown economic crisis, with decades-high inflation and low reserves.

The central bank raised its key policy rate by 100 basis points to 16% on Friday in an unexpected move to ensure high inflation does not get entrenched. 

Pakistan will honour its financial commitments on time: Dar

Moreover, Finance and Revenue Minister Ishaq Dar also assured that Pakistan will continue to honour its all financial commitments on time.

Sharing a Bloomberg infogram, Dar boosted that the publication pitches Pakistan’s one-year probability of default at a low of 10% as opposed to a highly dubious number of 93% circulated by an unscrupulous local political leader a few days ago.