Pakistan to Comfortably Meet its External Debt Obligations: SBP Governor

State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) Governor Jameel Ahmad Monday said that Pakistan will meet its external debt obligations for the current fiscal year (FY25) comfortably and timely. The governor’s remarks came during a press briefing after the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) meeting. In FY25, the central bank projects external repayments of $26.2 billion compared to $24.5 billion in FY24. Out of this, $16.3 billion ($12.3 billion official/bilateral, $4 billion commercial) would be rolled over. The net repayable amount for FY25 is close to $10 billion. In July 2024, the SBP has already paid $1.1 billion, while the remaining payable amount in 11MFY25 is $9 billion. The central bank expects a current account deficit (CAD) in the range of 0-1.0 percent of GDP during FY25 compared to 0.2 percent of GDP in FY24. CAD average for the last 5 and 10 years is 2.6 percent and 2.7 percent of GDP, respectively. The SBP governor also mentioned that currently there is no claim outstanding for the profit repatriation. He said that incremental inflows coming out of exports and remittances would be better than imports. The remittances trend in the last few months has been encouraging and July 2024 numbers are also likely to be above historic averages. Moreover, the SBP expects foreign exchange reserves around $13 billion by the end of the current fiscal year. With input from Topline Securities’ Note on MPC