Staying afloat

This letter refers to the news report ‘Remittances to reach $35bn in current fiscal: Aurangzeb’ (December 7, 2024). According to the report, the finance minister hopes that remittances will reach an all-time high of $35 billion in the current fiscal year. This is really good news. I would urge the PM, finance minister, the Special Investment Facilitation Counsel, and other powerful stakeholders to think about allocating a chunk of these remittances every year for external debt reduction. It would be a great milestone if we can manage to consistently allocate around $6-10 billion every year from 2025 to 2028 towards paying off the most expensive portion of our external debt. At the end of the day, controlling the size and quantum of our external debt ought to be one of the cornerstones of our economic policy as it would signal to the world that Pakistan is fully afloat and capable of paying off its debt.

Abbas R Siddiqi

Lahore