Oct 1, 2012-Sept 30, 2017: Foreign loans surge to $31.35bn
RECORDER REPORT
ISLAMABAD: Finance Minister Ishaq Dar informed the Senate on Friday that during the last five years – October 01, 2012 to September 30, 2017 – the government received short and long-term foreign loans of $31,355.22 million from lending countries and agencies.
In a written reply to a question asked by PTI Senator Azam Swati about the amount of short and long-term foreign loans obtained by the government during the last five years, Dar said that “interest rates of bonds has fixed markup of 7.2 percent, while commercial borrowing was at markup rate of fixed 4.7 percent, LBCR + 2.89, multilateral: fixed 1.94, LIBCR + 2.17, US swap 15 years + 1.2, countries/bilateral: fixed 1.63, EIBCR + 0.59, LIBCR + 0.82.”
He said that in addition to above Pakistan entered into a three-year loan arrangement with the IMF under the Extended Fund Facility (EFF) on September 4, 2013. During 2013-2016, an amount of US $6,377.46 million was received from the IMF under this facility.
The EFF loan, received from the IMF is subject to an interest rate calculated according to the following formula: * SDR interest rate+100 bps + surcharge of 200bps, if outstanding exceeds 187.5 % of quota + additional surcharge of 100 bps, if outstanding exceeds 187.5% of quota even after 51 months. *SDR interest rate changes every week. However, the current rate is 1.671%.
To another question by Azam Swati about the amount of aid received from the US during the last three years and details of its utilization, Dar in a written reply said that US has provided US $335.446 million during the last three years through United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and International Narcotics Control and Law Enforcement Pakistan (INLP).
About details of mechanism evolved by the government to monitor the number and amounts of mobile phone cards and easy load being issued or sold by mobile telephone companies for the purpose of collection of tax on it, Dar said that Pakistan Revenue Automation Limited (PRAL), the IT arm of FBR, in consultation with telcos has developed a utility which requires telcos to upload withholding data file on agreed format. The telcos with the intervention of PTA have agreed to upload data on the new format from August 2017.
He said that so far two cellular companies i.e. M/s Pakistan Mobile Communication Limited (PMCL) (Jazz) and M/s Pakistan Telecom Mobile Limited (PTML) (Ufone) have uploaded their data on the new format. The remaining two companies i.e. M/s Telenor Pakistan (Pvt) Ltd and M/s CM Pak (Zong) are yet to upload their data and are being pursued to complete the task at an early date.
“Since on the new software, the telcos are to provide information of customer wise usage of telephone including easy loads/calling cards used per month, the information so submitted can easily be cross-matched by the officer having jurisdiction of monitoring, withholding tax with information available with the companies during his field audits,” he added.
