Prepayment of loan

Published January 2, 2004

ISLAMABAD, Jan 1: Pakistan will pay over one billion dollars' expensive debt it owes to Asian Development Bank and World Bank ahead of schedule within the next four weeks, said Finance Minister Shaukat Aziz on Thursday.

Aziz said the prepayment of debt won't result in a dip in the country's over $12bn foreign exchange reserves because it is accumulating this amount separately. "We're going to write this one billion dollars check in one-go," Aziz told a press conference in Islamabad.

Earlier, the government has said it would pay Asian Development Bank $596.7m for seven loans scheduled to mature between 2005 to 2013 with interest rates ranging from 6pc to 11pc. The World Bank will be paid $481.7m for 11 loans, maturing between 2007 to 2019 with interest rates ranging from 4.6pc to 7.6pc.

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