Apart from higher fiscal deficit, depreciation of Pak rupee against the US dollar contributed to this increase during the first nine months of the current fiscal year. The Survey noted that depreciation of Pak rupee against international currencies may increase the value of external public debt portfolio when converted into Pak rupee for reporting purposes. Increase in external public debt contributed Rs 1,900 billion to public debt during the first nine months of the ongoing fiscal year while the government borrowing for financing of fiscal deficit from external sources was Rs 524 billion during the same period. This differential was mainly on account of depreciation of Pak rupee against the US dollar. Domestic debt registered an increase of Rs 1,754 billion while government borrowing for financing of fiscal deficit from domestic sources was Rs 1,398 billion. This differential is mainly attributed to an increase in credit balances of the government with the banking system.
The Survey further noted that the government debt was Rs 26.368 trillion by end-March, and recorded an increase of Rs 3.344 trillion during the first nine months of the current fiscal year 2018-19.
External Debt and Liability (EDL) stock during the first nine months of the current fiscal year recorded an increase of $10.6 billion to stand at $105.8 billion by end-March 2019 out of which public debt was $74.2 billion. External public debt increased by around $3.9 billion during the first nine months of the current fiscal year compared with the increase of $ 6.7 billion witnessed during the same period last year.
Domestic debt stock was recorded at Rs 18,171 billion by end-March 2019. During the first nine months of current fiscal year, the government relied mainly on domestic sources to finance its fiscal deficit. Consequently, domestic debt witnessed an increase of Rs 1,754 billion while the government borrowing from domestic sources for financing fiscal deficit was Rs 1,398 billion. This differential is mainly attributed to increase in government credit balances with the banking system. Most of the increase in domestic debt came from short-term floating debt while net mobilisation from permanent debt and unfunded debt remained limited during the first nine months of current fiscal year. Cumulatively, the government mostly borrowed from State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) and retired a portion of its debt to commercial banks.
Public debt servicing was recorded at Rs 1,975 billion during the first nine months of current fiscal year against the annual budgeted estimate of Rs 2,396 billion. Domestic interest payments constituted around 65 percent of total debt servicing due to higher volume of domestic debt in total public debt portfolio.
Domestic interest payments were recorded at Rs 1,277 billion during the first nine months of current fiscal year primarily driven by payments made against Market Related Treasury Bills (Rs 299 billion), Treasury Bills (Rs 290 billion), National Savings Schemes (Rs 272 billion) and Pakistan Investment Bonds (Rs 268 billion).
Permanent debt was recorded at Rs 4,804 billion at end-March 2019, representing an increase of Rs 144 billion during the first nine months of ongoing fiscal year. Net mobilisation from PIBs stood at Rs 183 billion compared with the retirement of Rs 1,068 billion during the same period last year. The government also mobilised Rs 178 billion from the auction of outright purchase of GIS on deferred payment (Bai Muajjal) basis.
Floating debt formed the largest part of domestic debt portfolio at end-March 2019 and was recorded at Rs 10,271 billion or around 57 percent of total domestic debt portfolio. Floating debt recorded an increase of Rs 1,382 billion during the first nine months of current fiscal year thereby around 79 percent of total increase in domestic debt portfolio was on account of mobilisation from floating debt.
Gross external public debt disbursements were recorded at $8.262 billion during the first nine months of current fiscal year. Disbursements from bilateral sources remained the main contributor in gross external public debt disbursements with a share of 48 percent or US $ 4,004 million. Out of this total, disbursements from China was US$ 3,885 million or 97 percent of total disbursement from bilateral sources
Foreign commercial loans contributed US $ 3,108 million in total disbursements. These commercial loans were primarily obtained for balance of payment support. The government mobilised US $ 1,150 million from multilateral sources largely for energy and infrastructure projects.
During the first nine months of the current fiscal year, servicing of external public debt was recorded at US $ 5,608 million. Segregation of this aggregate number shows repayment of US $ 4,139 million towards maturing external public debt stock while interest payments were US $ 1,470 million.