ISLAMABAD, June 8: Pakistan’s external debt and liabilities (EDL) have increased to $38.86 billion by end of March this year, up by $1.6 billion from $37.24 billion at the end of June 30 last year, says Pakistan Economic Survey 2006-07.

This included a total of $37.36 billion of total external debt while foreign exchange liabilities stood at $1.5 billion. Majority of the EDL were in the form of medium term borrowing from multilateral and bilateral lenders that accounted for nearly 80 per cent of the outstanding debt.

Of the total EDLs, public and publicly guaranteed debt also increased by $1.2 billion in nine months of the current financial year to $31.08 billion as of March 31 compared with $29.875 billion last year. The medium and long term (Paris Club, multilateral, and other bilateral) debts also increased by about $1.6 billion to $31.

Of the total EDL, 33 per cent comes from the Paris Club, 36.3 per cent from multilateral lenders, 4.9 per cent private non-guaranteed and 5.5 per cent foreign currency liabilities.

Pakistan’s total stock of external debt and foreign exchange liabilities grew at an average rate of 7.4 per cent per annum during 1990-99 - rising from $20.5 billion in 1990 to $38.9 billion by the end of June 1999. Foreign exchange earnings on the other hand either remained stagnant or increased at a snails pace.

Despite the accumulation of almost $18.4 billion debt in the 1990s, foreign exchange earnings rose by only $4 billion. Consequently the debt burden raised from 256.6 per cent in 1990 to 335.4 per cent in 1999.

The external debt and liabilities have, however, declined from 50.9 per cent of the GDP at the end of fiscal year 2002 to 26.3 per cent of the GDP by end of March 2007. Similarly, the EDLs were nearly 5.8 times the foreign exchange reserves at the end of fiscal year 2002 but declined to 2.8 per cent by end of March 2007.

Outstanding external debt and liabilities included all government debt denominated in foreign currency, loans contracted by enterprises with government ownership or more than 50 per cent, as well as the external debt of the private sector.

The EDLs grew by 1.6 per cent in fiscal year 2005, 3.9 per cent in 2006 and 4.4 per cent in 2007. The largest increase in stock was seen in debt by multilateral donors with a change in stock of $1.5 billion or 8.9 per cent.