HAIDER
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Pakistan will ask international lenders for billions of dollars worth of new loans to rebuild the country after calamitous floods uprooted 33mn people and pushed its cash-strapped economy even closer to insolvency. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said Islamabad was not trying to reschedule its external debt, worth about $130bn, but it did need “huge sums of money” for “mega undertakings” such as rebuilding roads, bridges and other infrastructure damaged or washed away in a deluge scientists have linked to climate change. “We are not asking for any kind of measure [such as] a rescheduling or a moratorium,” Sharif told the Financial Times. “We are asking for additional funds.” Pakistan’s leader would not be drawn on the exact amount his government was seeking, but repeated the $30bn estimate of the damage caused by the floods, the worst natural disaster in the country’s 75-year history. “There is a gap — and a very serious gap — which is widening by the day between our demands and what we have received,” Sharif said at his home in Lahore’s upscale Model Town neighbourhood. The prime minister also hinted that the failure of the international community to rally resources risked fuelling political instability in the nuclear-armed state, where populist opposition leader Imran Khan has been capitalising on widespread discontent.
Pakistan seeks billions in loans for ‘mega undertakings’ after floods
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif says failure to secure funds risks exacerbating political instability
www.ft.com