News Desk
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan is working on a document for sharing details of nearly two dozen projects with an estimated cost of 13 billion US dollars for making a request to the Joe Biden Administration to use its influence on multilateral creditors for giving loans to it.
This special document will be sent to the US authorities on eve of the Donors’ Conference scheduled to be organized in Geneva on 9 January 2023, for the reconstruction of flood-hit areas in Pakistan.
Out of 13-billion-dollar infrastructure projects, over 2 dozen projects would be shared that were ready for getting investments anytime as their PC-1s were already approved by the competent and relevant forums. There is one project titled Flood Protection Project having an estimated cost of 4 billion dollars and the other projects will be related to irrigation and other sectors.
Out of the total rebuilding cost of more than 16 billion dollars, the government has prepared a strategy to utilize eight billion dollars from its own budgetary resources while the other eight billion dollars will be requested from bilateral and multilateral creditors as the financing gap is needed for reconstruction in flood-affected areas.
Keeping in view the fatigue and involvement of the donors in other parts of the world, to government made a strategy to spare 50 percent of resources from its own treasury for starting reconstruction projects over the medium period. The remaining amount of 8.2 billion dollars will be requested from the donors’ communities.
Multilateral financial institutions to support projects
Out of 8.2 billion dollars identified as a financing gap by the government, the multilateral creditors such as Asian Development Bank, World Bank and Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) pledged and approved two billion dollars in projects for the reconstruction period in flood-hit areas while these multilateral financial institutions re-purposed four million dollars.
So far Pakistan received commitments of 2.4 billion dollars and it is expected that it would receive another one billion dollars from the other bilateral and multilateral creditors at the Donors Conference in Geneva.
There are maximum expectations of 3.5 to 4 billion dollars in commitments from the Conference however, it is yet to witness how much the international community comes forward to support Pakistan in undertaking the reconstruction period in flood-hit areas. Pakistan will also be trying for getting grants from donors for health, education, and other social sector areas in the upcoming Conference.
