Saudi Arabia vows to help Pakistan’s finances 'as much as it can'

• Saudi finance minister says kingdom will help Pakistan’s finances.
• Reserves fall below $7bn for first time since Jan 2019.
• Earlier this month, Saudia Arabia extended term of $3bn deposit.

Saudi Arabia Finance Minister Mohammed Al Jadaan said the kingdom would help Pakistan’s finances as it looks to help shore up alliances with countries struggling due to soaring inflation, Bloomberg reported Thursday.

Addressing a press conference in Riyadh, Al Jadaan said the Saudi government will “continue to support Pakistan as much as we can.”

In order to bolster its relationships, the kingdom has taken several steps to provide financial support to Pakistan as the cash-strapped nation desperately seeks support from international partners.

Earlier this month, Saudia Arabia extended the term of a $3 billion deposit to boost foreign currency reserves and help Pakistan in overcoming the economic repercussions of the cataclysmic floods.

The finance minister also shared that Riyadh was also looking to do more investments in Egypt and is planning to start doing deals in Turkey.

“Our relationship with Turkey is improving greatly, and we hope to have investment opportunities,” he said. 

“We have started investing aggressively in Egypt and we will continue to look at investment opportunities and that is more important than deposits. Deposits can be pulled but investments stay.”

It should be noted that Pakistan is in dire need of funds as the country’s foreign exchange reserves held by the central bank fell $784 million to $6.7 billion as of December 2.

The decline means the reserves have fallen further from November's barely one month of import cover, even as it battles decades of high inflation and scrambles to secure International Monetary Fund (IMF) funds.

The country’s foreign exchange reserves have fallen below the $7 billion level for the first time since January 2019. The current reserves stand at around $6.7 billion — almost equal to $6.6 billion on January 18, 2019.