New Delhi, March 21 The Asian Development Bank’s (ADB) announcement of a $10 billion credit for Pakistan over five years highlights the country’s continued reliance on external funding even as its peer nations grow out of such dependencies, a new report has said.
"Experts have noted that countries once considered Pakistan's peers are now able to self-finance growth, while we need to borrow to pay for basic infrastructure development," the report from The Express Tribune noted.
The financing support is part of a Country Partnership Strategy that envisages $20 billion in support over 10 years.
The increasing debt underscores Pakistan's reliance on external funding, with total external debt now exceeding $130 billion, nearly one-third of which is owed to multilateral institutions.
Analysts said that the credit support arrives as Pakistan showed tentative signs of recovery with inflation easing to 4.5 per cent in FY25 and foreign exchange reserves exceeding $21 billion.
"Serious questions remain over our ability to break the cycle of dependency," the report said, adding the overall growth pace remains far too low to be able to plot a sustainable long-term growth projection on a timeline.
The country has entered 23 IMF programmes since independence — more than any other Asian economy, making it owe the fund almost $9 billion.
Pakistan owes the fourth-highest current debt to IMF and accounts for roughly half of the IMF's current outstanding loans to Asia.
The report pointed out weak domestic revenue mobilisation as the core challenge, where tax‑to‑GDP remains low compared with peers and insufficient to finance large infrastructure and development needs without borrowing.
Pakistan’s horoscope for 2026–2031 would be written in "debt ledgers, inflation charts and poverty lines," another recent report had said, warning of slow growth and inflation eroding household budgets.
Analysts said that stabilisation programmes and IMF support can only buy time but cannot generate sustained growth, and lack of decisive action from the government will lead employment to remain concentrated in informal, low‑productivity services.
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