Pakistan to sign agreements worth $2 billion with Saudi Arabia, says PM Shehbaz

Pakistan is scheduled to sign agreements worth around $2 billion with a visiting Saudi delegation later this month, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said on Tuesday.
A delegation from Saudi Arabia is expected in the country before the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) meeting that the country is hosting from Oct 15-16, he said.
The Saudi delegation, led by Minister for Investment Khalid Bin Abdulaziz Al-Falih, is set to visit Pakistan from Oct 9 to 11.
It is expected to include representatives from both government agencies and the private sector, signalling a broadening of Pakistan-Saudi economic partnerships.
During the federal cabinet meeting, the prime minister listed several positive developments such as China, UAE and Saudi helping the country successfully clinch the International Monetary Fund (IMF) programme by providing timely confirmation of necessary financing assurances.
Additionally, he said that the Malaysian prime minister “had a very successful visit” and that a Saudi delegation was about to visit the country.
Regarding PTI clashes with the police in Islamabad during the SCO moot, the prime minister stressed that this was being done to “stay relevant” because the economy was improving.
“This is the same steps being taken again as the IMF programme has been started successfully, inflation has decreased and exports are increasing,” he said, adding that their “homegrown growth programme is being sabotaged”.
In August, it was reported that Pakis­tan had requested Saudi Arabia to increase its lending by about $1.5 billion from its existing $5bn portfolio to help bridge the external financing gap needed for the IMF’s 37-month bailout package.
All three friendly bilateral partners — Saudi Arabia, China and the UAE — had confirmed to the IMF their $12bn loan rollovers to Pakistan.
Meanwhile, Finance Minister Muhammed Aurangzeb said during a televised address that the recent PTI clash in Islamabad and the Karachi attack on Chinese citizens had not only led to a loss of human lives but also caused significant damage to the economy.
“We’ve brought economic stability so we can go towards growth,” he said. “If you are doing it [protests] for the country, then you need to think about the impact of it on the economy.”
“In Islamabad alone, 800,000 families have suffered because of this strife,” he stressed, asking people to come to the table to negotiate instead.
As for the economic losses, the finance minister that there was a “Rs190 billion loss per day, including GDP, business disruption, and IT losses,” due to the law and order situation.
Regarding the terrorist attack in Karachi, which resulted in the deaths of two Chinese nationals, the finance minister said, “Yesterday, our Chinese brothers who were killed, whose precious lives were wasted, we cannot estimate a cost on them.”
“I express my condolences to the government of China and the people of China,” he said, adding that those who lost their lives were independent power producer (IPP) engineers with whom the power minister and he were negotiating with for debt reprofiling.
“And I am saying that this is — or was — the Chinese IPP who had extended their hand to us,” he stated. “These are people, our brothers, who stepped up to help us.”
“So terrorism, strife or strike, when our economy is stable and we are going towards another journey, these are setbacks we cannot afford at this time — nor will we,” he stressed.
“I want to appeal to everyone — my brothers and sisters — to not take a step in the direction where it harms the economy.”

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