ISLAMABAD    -   Federal Minister for Fi­nance and Revenue Ishaq Dar on Wednesday said that the Board of Chi­na Development Bank has approved the facil­ity of $700 million dol­lars for Pakistan, which would help in building the country’s foreign ex­change reserves.

“Formalities complet­ed and the Board of Chi­

na Development Bank has approved the facility of $700 million for Pakistan. This amount is expected to be received this week by State Bank of Pakistan which will shore up its forex reserves,” said the Finance Minister in a tweet yesterday. Another official claimed that Pakistan would receive the much needed amount in next couple of days.

He further said that that Pakistan is eyeing to get re-financing of Chinese loans up to $2 billion by the end of Feb­ruary or the first week of March 2023. Two more commercial loans including $500 million and $800 million were ex­pected to be re-financed making total fi­nancing at $2 billion from the friendly country. The government is also expect­ing to receive inflows from Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates following the revival of loan programme of Interna­tional Monetary Fund (IMF).

The country’s foreign exchange re­serves held by the central bank are around only $3 billion, only enough to cover three weeks of imports. The gov­ernment is currently negotiating with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to revive the much needed loan pro­gramme. The revival of IMF programme would release one billion dollars loan tranche for Pakistan but it would also pave way for getting loan from other bilateral and multilateral sources. The government had accepted prior actions of the IMF including increasing gas and electricity prices and approving mini budget from the parliament to generate additional revenue of Rs170 billion in remaining four months (March to June) of the current fiscal year.