Hamid Mir1 day ago
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The year 2025 started with a good news for Pakistan. The World Bank is going to approve a package of $20 billion for Pakistan on January 14.
This package is for government projects and after its approval, the World Bank will also announce another package of $20 billion for Pakistan’s private sector. These 40 billion dollars will be spent in the next 10 years.
Recently, the World Bank had canceled Pakistan’s $500 million budget support loan due to some concerns regarding the energy sector projects of China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). But not even a few weeks had passed when the World Bank surprised Islamabad by indicating that Pakistan would be the first country where the World Bank would launch a 10-year partnership strategy for 2025 to 2035.
Last year Pakistan’s economy was on the verge of bankruptcy. China and Saudi Arabia had brought it out of danger. But in this situation, Pakistan has become the biggest lender to China with a loan of 29 billion dollars. Saudi Arabia also has a debt of $19.63 billion on Pakistan.
A large part of the loan package that the World Bank is going to approve will be spent on education.
At the end of 2024, the International Monetary Bank (IMF) had signed an agreement with Pakistan and approved a loan of $ 7 billion to be spent in 37 months. The question that arises is why did the World Bank choose Pakistan for such a big 10-year program? Some experts believe that the IMF and the World Bank want to prevent China’s complete control over Pakistan’s economy.
It is also significant that Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif had unveiled the National Economic Transformation Plan 2024-29 on December 31. He was successful in uniting all the alliance partners and the opposition on the last day of last year. This was a major political success for his future economic agenda. He has named his economic agenda ‘Udan Pakistan’. Just a few days after this announcement, the World Bank selected Pakistan for its mega 10-year project.
The World Bank will not transfer the entire money to the government at once. According to Finance Ministry officials, this money will be spent only on projects in health, education and climate change sectors. Money will come to Pakistan project by project.
The World Bank has made it clear that this money will not be spent on telecommunications, mining, transport, power schemes and urban infrastructure. Most of these areas are under the influence of the military. Some army companies like National Logistics Cell and Frontier Works Organization easily get big contracts and then the money goes into the army’s accounts.
The World Bank has ensured that its money is spent on the education of children who cannot go to school, and not on projects where civil and military officials embezzle foreign funds through corrupt politicians.
I recently saw a World Bank report. This report titled ‘Poverty Assessment in Pakistan’ claimed that poverty in Pakistan will increase by 7 percent in 2024. Another 1 crore 30 lakh people were added to the list of people living below the poverty line.
Already 5.5 crore people in the country are living below the poverty line. This is more than 29 percent of the total population of Pakistan.
Pakistan may have escaped economic default, but political stability is needed to achieve larger economic goals.
Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has recently started talks with the opposition, but he does not have complete control over this conversation.
In fact, it is the intelligence agencies that are controlling the communication between the government and the opposition. Interference of intelligence agencies in politics will not bring any political stability in Pakistan.
Shahbaz Sharif has definitely obtained 20 billion dollars from the World Bank, but he cannot utilize this money properly until stability and rule of law are implemented in the country. Pakistan cannot fly high with loan money. Pakistan can do this only with its own money.
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