{"id":653756,"date":"2026-11-07T11:40:37","date_gmt":"2026-11-07T11:40:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/653756\/"},"modified":"2026-11-07T11:40:37","modified_gmt":"2026-11-07T11:40:37","slug":"how-deep-is-pakistans-debt-dependence-on-china-the-numbers-tell-the-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/653756\/","title":{"rendered":"How deep is Pakistan&#8217;s debt dependence on China? The numbers tell the story"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <img src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/shehbaz-sharif-and-asim-munir-r.jpg\" alt=\"How deep is Pakistan's debt dependence on China? The numbers tell the story\" title=\"China leads as external debt touches $135 billion\" decoding=\"async\" fetchpriority=\"high\"\/>China leads as external debt touches $135 billion Pakistan\u2019s external debt has nearly doubled over the past decade, climbing to $135.1 billion in 2025 from $68.67 billion in 2015, according to a World Bank report cited by Dawn.The figures underline the Islamic country\u2019s growing dependence on foreign borrowing to meet its financial needs.The debt stock comprised $107.07 billion in public and publicly guaranteed loans, $17.58 billion in private non-guaranteed debt and $10.45 billion in short-term borrowing.Of the public debt, multilateral institutions accounted for the largest share at $56.83 billion. Pakistan also owed $42.43 billion to bilateral lenders and $7.8 billion to private creditors.China remained Pakistan\u2019s biggest individual creditor, with outstanding loans of $22.4 billion. The World Bank was next with $19.2 billion, followed by the Asian Development Bank (ADB), to which Pakistan owed $16.83 billion.The report also highlighted the difference in borrowing costs. Loans from official creditors had an average maturity of 16 years, a four-year grace period and an interest rate of 3.6%. Private credit, in contrast, came at a much steeper average interest rate of 8.6%, with a repayment period of three years and a grace period of just one year.Across the Middle East, North Africa, Afghanistan and Pakistan region, debt-service and interest ratios showed improvement.However, the region\u2019s external debt-to-gross national income (GNI) ratio rose from 26.7% to 29.4% in 2025. This was the sharpest annual increase recorded by any region, pointing to a continued build-up of external debt.Pakistan also received some relief through fresh financing and loan extensions during the year. China extended the maturity of $2 billion in loans, while the International Monetary Fund (IMF) disbursed $2.3 billion under its Extended Fund Facility and Resilience and Sustainability Facility programmes, aimed at supporting the country\u2019s longer-term economic stability.<\/p>\n<p>Should Pakistan rely more on multilateral institutions for financial aid?<\/p>\n<p>3k+ users shared opinion today <\/p>\n<p>5k+ users already voted today <\/p>\n<p>3k+ users shared opinion today <\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/timesofindia.indiatimes.com\/polls\/polls-in-articles\/should-pakistan-rely-more-on-multilateral-institutions-for-financial-aid\/pollopinions\/135599523.cms?src=articleshow\" class=\"pd_MH\" commonstate=\"[object Object]\" frmappuse=\"1\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Share Opinion<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"China leads as external debt touches $135 billion Pakistan\u2019s external debt has nearly doubled over the past decade,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":653757,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[320478,138,320479,320476,219,320477,320475,320480,111,139,69,74074,320474],"class_list":["post-653756","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-asian-development-bank-loans","tag-business","tag-china-loans-to-pakistan","tag-debt-to-gni-ratio","tag-economy","tag-financial-stability-pakistan","tag-foreign-borrowing-pakistan","tag-imf-disbursement-pakistan","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-pakistan-external-debt","tag-world-bank-report-2025"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/653756","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=653756"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/653756\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/653757"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=653756"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=653756"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=653756"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}