[Khaama(Afghanistan)] Pakistain is seeking billions of dollars in loans for ’mega undertakings’ after a record-breaking monsoonal rainfall led a large part of the country to flood through the residentials and farmlands.
Pakistain estimated the total losses from flood could be as high as $40 billion — $10 billion, according to sources, a figure more than the government’s initial estimate.
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", according to the Financial Times.
"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."
Mega undertakings will include rebuilding roads, bridges and other infrastructure damaged or washed away in a deluge scientists have linked to climate change.
"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 neighborhood. |