Pakistan Estimates Flood Losses At $40Bn, Urging For Int'l Aid

(MENAFN- Khaama Press)

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan – Pakistan estimated the total losses from flood could be as high as $40 billion – $10 billion, according to sources, a figure more than the government's initial estimate.

On Tuesday, the country's climate change Minister Sherry Rehman said the country cannot afford to spend more on flood-affected areas, calling for faster international help at the launch of new UN appeal for aid.

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“I don't think they are going to make good $30bn or $40bn that we have lost but I think there should be some measures of help, whether it is the international agencies to get greater loans for Pakistan, whether it is other countries underwriting loans to Pakistan,” Miftah Ismail late last month when he was the finance minister.

Pakistan is one of the world's top 10 most vulnerable countries to climate change, but the country was not prepared for a disaster of such scale.

The catastrophic floods destroyed standing crops, roads, bridges, rail networks, and crucial infrastructure such as schools and hospitals.

The Asian Development Bank has announced a $2.5bn package and the World Bank pledged $2bn in aid, The International Monetary Fund in August approved a $1.17bn bailout package, as Aljazeera wrote.

Also, the United Nations revised up its humanitarian appeal for Pakistan five-fold, to $816 million from $160 million, as a surge of water-borne diseases and fear of growing hunger posed new dangers after weeks of unprecedented flooding.

Saudi Arabia's King Salman Humanitarian Aid and Relief Centre (KSRelief) provided basic essentials to support the flood-affected areas of Pakistan that killed roughly 1,700 in the country.

The government and the United Nations have blamed climate change for the disaster, which has submerged huge swathes of the South Asian country and killed nearly 1,700 people. Hundreds of thousands of displaced people are living in the open.

Pakistan's debt reaches to a record high, jumping to almost 60 trillion Pakistani Rupees due to a huge currency depreciation and ongoing political crisis under Shehbaz Sharif government.

The increase in public debt was PKR9.3 trillion in the past one fiscal year but it swelled up to a record PKR49.2 trillion by end-June 2022, according to the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP).

Moreover, the central bank's latest debt bulletin for the fiscal year 2021-22 showcased that the debt burden increased in terms of the size of the national economy, indicating that Pakistan is at its worst and under a heavy load of unbearable debt burden.

According to the SBP, the total debt and liabilities of the country increased to PKR59.7 trillion, a surge of PKR 11.9 trillion, or 25 percent, compared to the preceding fiscal year which clearly indicates that in the fiscal year 2021-22, the nation added one-fourth of the debt accumulated from 1947 to June 2021.

In terms of the size of the economy, Pakistan's total debt and liabilities were equal to 76.4 percent in 2018 which jumped to 89.2 percent by June this year despite the rebasing of the economy.

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