NEW YORK, June 21. On the eve of launching foreign currency bond of up to $500m Pakistan’s Finance Minister, Shaukat Aziz will visit the premier credit ratings agencies, Moody’s and Standard and Poor, in New York on Monday.

It would mark Pakistan’s return to the international capital markets from which it has been shut out since its 1998 nuclear tests.

A portfolio manager at Goldman Sachs, one of the most powerful investment houses on Wall Street, noted that Aziz’s visit to the ratings agency was important to shore up positive ratings for the Pakistani bond issue.

In an interview with Dawn, he said that a “positive evaluation of Pakistani Bond” in the market would increase appetite for country’s bond issue and consequently the interest rates would go down.

“That would mean that Pakistan can borrow money from the international market at a lower rate without going with a begging bowl to IMF and the World bank,” he emphasized.