Climate programme: SBP receives $500m loan from ADB

KARACHI: Pakistan on Thursday received inflows amounting to $500 million as loan from the Asian Development Bank (ADB).

The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) has confirmed the receipt of the inflows. “The SBP has received US$500 million from the Asian Development Bank as proceeds of a loan to the government of Pakistan for the Climate Change and Disaster Resilience Enhancement Program (CDREP),” SBP said in a statement issued Friday night.

According to the SBP, these proceeds will be reflected in SBP’s foreign exchange reserves for the week ending 29th November 2024 to be published on 05th December 2024.

This disbursement will help bolster the foreign exchange reserves held by the SBP and likely to cross the $12 billion mark by the end of November 2024. The SBP’s reserves stood at $11.42 billion as on November 22, 2024 and enough to cover the import bill of more than two months.

Earlier this month, the SBP Governor Jameel Ahmed predicted that SBP’s reserves will continue to move upward side and will touch $12 billion mark end of November and as per projection reserves are growing.

Last week, Pakistan inked a loan agreement with ADB under the CDREP to improve the ability to handle the risks of natural disasters and climate change.

Analysts said that these inflows and continued increase in foreign exchange reserves will help to further improve the external current account which is already in surplus supported by robust workers’ remittances, exports growth, and the receipt of the first tranche from the IMF’s Extended Fund Facility (EFF) programme.

Pakistan recorded a current account surplus of $218 million in July-October FY25, as against a deficit of $1.528 billion in the same period last fiscal year. Workers remittance inflows were $11.850 billion during July to October FY25, which is a 35 percent increase compared with a year earlier.