State Bank receives $500m from AIIB: Ishaq Dar

ISLAMABAD: The AIIB has provided $500 million as co-financing for a development programme in Pakistan. Earlier this month, the Federal Finance Minister Ishaq Dar had announced about the funds, which would help shore up the forex reserves held by the central bank.

“Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) has transferred today, as per their Board’s approval, to State Bank of Pakistan/Government of Pakistan US $500 million as program financing,” tweeted the finance minister on Tuesday.

“These funds will be received by the State Bank of Pakistan within November 2022,” Dar had tweeted, as cash-strapped Pakistan desperately seeks financing to cushion the impact of floods.

The BRACE (Building Resilience with Active Counteryclical Expenditures Programme) is an Asian Development Bank (ADB) financing programme to counter the social fallouts of economic crisis. The funds would help shore up the forex reserves held by the central bank.

The reserves are crucial for the country, amid the current situation, where it has to also import edibles after the cataclysmic floods severely devastated the crops and dealt damages estimated at over $30 billion.

In October, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) had also approved $1.5 billion in financing to help Pakistan provide social protection, promote food security and support employment for its people amid devastating floods and global supply chain disruptions.

The loan, provided under the ADB’s BRACE, will help fund the government’s $2.3 billion countercyclical development expenditure programme designed to cushion the impacts of external shocks, including the Russian invasion of Ukraine.