RIYADH, Jan 10 (EW): The Crown Prince of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) Mohammad bin Salman (MBS) on Monday ordered the Saudi Development Fund to study increasing Saudi investments and deposits in Pakistan to $15 billion.
According to the KSA’s official news agency, the crown prince and premier MBS issued instructions to consider increasing the number of deposits in the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) to $5 billion.
The kingdom also plans to invest $10 billion in the country.
The Saudi news agency further said that the announcement comes after talks between Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif and MBS.
Last year, Saudi Arabia had announced an investment of $1bn in Pakistan.
Last week, in what appears to be an alternative to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Finance Minister Ishaq Dar expressed hope to receive a $3 billion second bailout from Saudi Arabia within days, vowing to raise money through the sale of assets to beef up the critically-low foreign exchange reserves.
At a joint press conference with the government’s economic team, Dar showed his commitment to the IMF programme but at the same time stressed that he would not take any steps that would put a burden on the people.
At the presser, he did not say categorically that the National Security Committee (NSC) clearly backed the IMF programme plan.
“God willing, in matters of days, Saudi Arabia will beef up reserves,” said Dar, while responding to a question whether there was any concrete commitment from any foreign nation to avoid the crisis.
Later on, he told The Express Tribune that Pakistan would receive $3 billion from the kingdom.
