China’s SAFE provides $1 billion deposit loan to shore up Pakistan’s foreign exchange reserves in July 2021 (Linked to Project ID#92626)

On July 23, 2020, China’s State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE) provided a $1 billion loan to the Government of Pakistan in order to shore up the country’s foreign exchange reserves (as captured via Project ID#92626). The loan carried the following borrowing terms: a 1-year maturity (final maturity date: July 23, 2021), a 1-year grace period, and an interest rate of 12-month LIBOR plus a 1% margin. SAFE made a $1 billion deposit (loan disbursement) in the State Bank of Pakistan on or around July 23, 2020. The loan was provided by SAFE to help the Government of Pakistan repay part of a $3 billion loan to Saudi Arabia, which was contracted to avoid default on its international debt obligations. This was reportedly the first time that SAFE issued a deposit loan to Pakistan’s federal government rather than its central bank (the State Bank of Pakistan). In July 2021, the $1 billion SAFE deposit loan from July 2020 was repaid and reissued (i.e. 'rolled over) with a maturity date of July 23, 2022 (as captured via Project ID#96216). Then, in July 2022, the $1 billion SAFE deposit loan from July 2021 was repaid and reissued (i.e. 'rolled over) with a maturity date of July 23, 2023. As of May 31, 2022, the Government of Pakistan’s total amount outstanding under multiple deposit loans from SAFE was $4 billion.

Additional details

1. The borrowing terms of the July 2021 loan are unknown. For the time being, AidData assumes that the same borrowing terms from the July 2020 loan (an interest rate of 12-month LIBOR plus a 1% margin) also applied to the July 2021 loan. Therefore, AidData has estimated the all-in interest rate by adding 1% to average 12-month LIBOR in July 2021 (0.241%).

Number of official sources

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Number of total sources

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