Pakistan has put in a request to China to augment its existing swap line by 10 billion yuan ($1.4bn), Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb said, adding that he expected the country would launch a Panda bond before year-end.

Pakistan has an existing 30bn yuan swap line already, Aurangzeb told Reuters in an interview on the sidelines of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank Group spring meetings in Washington.

“From our perspective, getting to 40bn renminbi would be a good place to move towards […] we just put in that request,” Aurangzeb said.

China’s central bank has been promoting currency swap lines with a raft of emerging economies, including the likes of Argentina and Sri Lanka.

Pakistan has also made progress on issuing its........

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