ISLAMABAD: Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb said that International Monetary Fund (IMF) Executive Board’s approval of staff-level agreement with Islamabad regarding fresh bailout package is linked with $ 12 billion debt profiling by friendly countries.

Speaking at press conference here, Aurangzeb said that external financing gap was quite “Manageable” and maintained that government only seeks re-profiling of its foreign deposits of $ 12 billion, including $ 5 billion from Saudi Arabia, $ 4 billion from China and $ 3 billion from United Arab Emirates for three to five-year period. Commenting on issue of debt related to Chinese Independent Power Producers, Aurangzeb said that government has already commenced process of re-profiling  debt wherein it seeks extension in maturity and now Chinese consultant would be hired to move towards achieving desired objectives. “There is need to understand very delicate issue carefully as Pakistan does not seek any debt restructuring or haircut but it has requested for an extension in tenor of maturity of outstanding debt on account of both foreign deposits and Chinese IPPs debt,” he remarked. Noting that there would be nine Chinese IPPs, including one transmission line and they could not go ahead with knee-jerk approach, finance czar announced that joint working groups would be established to create win-win situation for both sides as it would be long process for discussing with individual IPPs issue of their rate on equity and dividend in detail. Confirming that Islamabad was discussing $ 600 million commercial loan from Chinese banks, he announced that government would launch Panda Bond whereby they intend to register $ 1 billion out of which $ 150 to $ 200 million would be capitalised in first phase.