PAKISTAN’S debt dynamics continue to paint a difficult fiscal picture. The latest State Bank debt bulletin shows that the government had added Rs9.3tr in new debt during the last fiscal year, with the total public debt stock surging to a record Rs80.5tr at the end of June. It means that the government had added a staggering Rs25.4bn every single day.

This relentless rise not only breaches the limits set by the Fiscal Responsibility and Debt Limitation Act, but also undermines the budget as interest payments consume most of the latter.

The SBP data underlines that public debt has increased both in absolute terms and relative to the size of the economy, a combination that would require more borrowings for making debt payments.

The resurgent debt-to-GDP........

© Dawn