Former Pak Finance Minister Dar express concern over reduction of oil deferred payment facility by Saudi Arabia

Pakistan former Finance Minister Ishaq Dar on Monday expressed concerns over the reduction of oil deferred payment facility by Saudi Arabia.

"Good news that existing Saudi deposit with the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) of USD 1 billion will be topped up by USD 2 billion to revive it back to USD 3 billion; bad news that oil deferred payment facility has been reduced from USD 3 billion to USD 1.2 billion," said Dar while talking to The News International over the revival of Saudi economic assistance package to Pakistan.

Saudi Arabia has announced to provide 4.2 billion USD worth of assistance to Pakistan to support its economy.

The assistance was announced last Wednesday after Prime Minister Imran Khan's three-day visit to Saudi Arabia during which he held talks with Saudi Prince Mohammad bin Salman in Riyadh.

Dar added that the Saudi economic assistance package for Pakistan stood revived but reduced from USD 6 billion to USD 4.2 billion, reported The News International.

Imran Khan in August 2018 after assuming office had declared his preference to seek support from friendly countries instead of going to the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

The former federal minister reminded that UAE and Qatar too joined in to lend further support by placing deposits of USD 2 billion and USD 500 million respectively with the SBP, adding that the PTI government subsequently also used USD 3 billion Chinese trade financing facility to shore up the foreign reserves with the SBP.

Dar recalled that the Imran Khan-led Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI's) government later chose to engage IMF for obtaining the Fund program for USD 6 billion facilities regarding which Imran Khan, before General Elections 2018, pledged publicly to the nation that he would prefer committing suicide over going to the IMF for financing facility.

Dar also recalled the reasons for the partial withdrawal of Saudi economic assistance to the country, said that on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly (UNGA) annual meeting, Imran Khan announced with Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan and Malaysian Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohammad to jointly hold an Islamic Summit which was later held in Kuala Lumpur in 2019, adding that the surprise move annoyed Saudi Arabia and UAE, who viewed it as a threat to the unity of the Muslim world, reported The News International.

Consequently, Saudi Arabia withdrew USD 2 billion of the USD 3 billion deposit with SBP in addition to terminating the oil deferred payment facility.

Citing reports, Dar said that Pak Rupee had been the worst-performing Asian currency in the last six months, reported The News International.

( With inputs from ANI )

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