Prime Minister Imran Khan on Monday said the country, which has had to borrow money to pay interest on its loans, is sitting on huge amounts of dead capital.
The prime minister took to twitter to announce that statistics pertaining to ninety per cent of the state-owned land in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Punjab, and the federal areas were 'startling.'
"I have just got figures of 90% of state-owned land in KP, Punjab & federal areas & rest houses/official residences built on this land," PM Imran tweeted.
"The figures are startling: 34,459 kanals are rural & 17,035 kanals are urban. Just the urban land with buildings is worth over Rs 300 billion!" the prime minister wrote.
"So a country that has to borrow money to pay interest on its loans (burdening our future generations) — & daily interest payment is Rs 5 b — is sitting on huge amounts of dead capital (just 90% of urban holdings is worth Rs 300b) in the form of this govt-owned land with buildings," PM Imran wrote.
According to State Bank of Pakistan, foreign debt and liabilities soared around 14 per cent to $95.097 billion in the fiscal year ended June 30, as the country struggles to meet its external financing requirement.
Data released by the central bank further revealed that the country’s public external debt amounted to $75.357 billion in June-end compared to $66.103 billion a year earlier. Loans from multilateral donors rose to $28 billion from $27.605 billion.
In early August, officials told the Financial Times that the country planned to borrow more than four billion dollars from the Saudi-backed Islamic Development Bank as part of its attempts to restore dangerously low stocks of foreign currency.
The officials have already drawn up plans to borrow up to $12 billion from the International Monetary Fund — though such a bailout is likely to come with strings attached, such as a demand to see the details behind billions of dollars’ worth of Chinese loans. Outstanding debt from the International Monetary Fund stood at $6.095 billion till June-end.
