Finance Minister Ishaq Dar on Thursday announced that China has rolled over a $2.4 billion loan to Islamabad for two years, easing repayment pressures on the country as it works to build its foreign reserves after inking a $3 billion stand-by arrangement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
“Chinese Exim bank rolled over principal amounts totaling $2.4bn which are due in next two fiscal years,” he wrote on Twitter, adding that Pakistan will continue to make interest payments on the loans over the next two years.
Last week, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif had announced that Exim Bank of China had rolled over a $600 million loan to Pakistan. He told a gathering that this was in addition to over $5 billion in loans that China had rolled over in the last three months.
Since Pakistan has secured the IMF bailout, friendly countries such as China, Saudi Arabia, and the U.A.E. have all provided financial support to Islamabad, helping the country avert a default. As a result, the country’s foreign exchange reserves have risen to their highest level in nine months—$8.7 billion as of July 14—having finished the last month at a little over $4 billion.