ISLAMABAD, Feb 21: Pakistan received $1.203bn loans from the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and World Bank (WB) just in the last eight months.

Minister of State for Economic Affairs and Statistics Hina Rabbani Khar informed the National Assembly in a written reply here on Wednesday that of the total amount $956.2m were borrowed from the ADB and $247.2million from the WB.

The Asian Development Bank provided $30.2m from its Asian Development Fund (ADF) with an interest rate of 1 per cent during the grace period and 1.5 per cent thereafter.

The ADB provided another $926.2m from its Ordinary Capital Resource (OCR) on London Inter-Bank Offered Rate (LIBOR) for six months in US dollars plus 60bps.

The WB provided $22.2m on 0.75 per cent interest rate, $200m on LIBOR six months and $25m on LIBOR 12 months.

In response to a similar question, Minister of State for Finance Omar Ayub Khan told the Parliament that the government obtained Rs13bn from domestic sources between January to June last year.

The country’s foreign debt and liabilities increased by 5.73 per cent on June 30, 2006 compared to the outstanding stock by the end of December 31, 2005. During this period, the country received $880m from China, Japan, ADB and other financial institutions.

Ms Khar said the Pakistan had not provided any loans to Afghanistan and neither the country had received any demand from the Afghan government in this regard.

However, Pakistan had earmarked $300m for the reconstruction and rehabilitation of the war-torn country.

In reply to a query, she said Japan had provided $411.61m to Pakistan during the last five years of which $150m was non-project grant aid (NPGA) and $261.6m project grant aid.

Answering a question regarding the Rozgar Scheme, Omar Ayub said the government had allocated Rs250m for the scheme in the current year’s budget through a supplementary grant. The National Bank of Pakistan (NBP) was granting loans to the applicants from its own resources and the federal government would contribute towards interest rate subsidy and disability insurance and credit loss.He said the NBP had also publicised the details of the scheme through media advertisements in the national press, TV channels and NBP website.