China agrees to give credit to Pakistan!

Islamabad: Pakistan’s ally China has approved a loan of 700 million US dollars to Pakistan, Pakistan’s Finance Minister Ishaq Dar said today.

The China Development Bank has offered to help with the loan after Pakistan’s parliament unanimously passed a bill aimed at raising tax revenue to meet requests from the International Monetary Fund for USD 1.1 billion.

The amount is expected to be received from the State Bank of Pakistan this week. Pakistan’s Finance Minister Ishaq Dar tweeted on his Twitter page that through this loan, Pakistan’s foreign exchange reserves will increase.

As of February 10, Pakistan reported that the central bank had only US$3.2 billion in reserves, enough to cover just three weeks of imports.