Khurram Schehzad, Adviser to the Minister for Finance & Revenue, speaks at the National Incubation Center in Karachi on July 30, 2025. (Handout/Finance Ministry/File)
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has retired Rs2,600 billion ($9.2 billion) debt to central and commercial banks in less than one year, the country’s finance adviser said on Sunday, describing it as a “record achievement” amid improving fiscal discipline.
The Pakistani finance ministry early-retired Rs500 billion to the central bank on June 30, while the country’s Debt Management Office executed another repayment of Rs1,133 billion on August 29, according to Khurram Schehzad, adviser to Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb.
The brought the total early retirement of the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) debt to Rs1,633 billion. Earlier this fiscal year, the finance ministry retired domestic commercial market debt of Rs1,000 billion, in the first such advanced debt retirement operation in Pakistan’s history.
“Including both the central bank and commercial portions, the total early debt retirement in less than one year now comes to over PKR 2,600 billion — an unprecedented scale and decisive action in the country’s fiscal history,” Schehzad said on X.
Pakistan’s total domestic debt stood at Rs51,518 billion in March 2025, according to the central bank data.
Schehzad said the government had cut the SBP debt by nearly 30 percent to Rs3.8 trillion from Rs5.5 trillion well before its 2029 maturity.
“This action marks a decisive shift from past debt-heavy practices, where reliance on borrowing crowded out fiscal space and increased risks,” he said.
The development comes as the South Asian country treads a long, tricky path to economic recovery under a $7 billion International Monetary Fund (IMF) program. Pakistan has struggled with boom-bust cycles for decades and secured 22 IMF bailouts since 1958.
The finance adviser said the improved fiscal discipline has eased the country’s 2029 refinancing burden, lowered rollover risks and created more room for development spending.
“The average maturity of domestic debt has risen to 3.8 years from 2.7 in FY24 — the sharpest single-year improvement in history, and well ahead of the IMF target,” he shared.
“With falling rates and disciplined, early repayments, the government has already secured over PKR +800 billion in taxpayer savings (FY25).”
Schehzad said the move was part of “responsible, forward-looking financial governance.”
“By reversing the old cycle of unchecked borrowing and putting repayment at the center of fiscal management, Pakistan is restoring credibility, strengthening resilience, and building a more sustainable future,” he added.
Sindh braces for ‘super flood’ after deluges kill 33, displace 750,000 in Punjab/node/2613640/pakistan
ISLAMABAD/KARACHI: Pakistan’s southern Sindh province is on high alert for a possible “super flood” as authorities prepare mass evacuations, after relentless monsoon deluges in neighboring Punjab killed at least 33 people and displaced 750,000 this week.
Punjab, home to nearly 128 million people — almost half of Pakistan’s total population of 240 million — has been battered this week by floods triggered by heavy monsoon showers and excess water released by India. The deluges are now surging downstream toward Sindh, the country’s second-most populous province with about 56 million residents, raising fears of large-scale devastation.
Floodwaters in the Chenab, Ravi and Sutlej rivers are expected to reach Sindh in the coming days, with officials warning that flows at Guddu and Sukkur barrages could swell to as high as 900,000 cusecs. A super flood refers to an exceptionally large and destructive event, rare in occurrence, that can cause widespread devastation across vast areas.
Nationwide, at least 854 people have been killed and more than 1,100 injured since the monsoon season began in late June.
“The government’s top priority is the safety of human lives, livestock and barrages,” Sindh Information Minister Sharjeel Memon said in a statement on Sunday. “The district administration, PDMA [provincial disaster management authority], Pakistan Navy, and Pakistan Army are actively engaged in evacuation and relief operations.”
Sindh Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah has directed authorities to intensify flood-fighting efforts at vulnerable locations, the minister said.
“Machinery, stones, and staff have been deployed at KK embankments, Shaheen embankment, Qadirpur, Rawanti, and other vulnerable sites, with officers maintaining round-the-clock surveillance,” Memon added.
A survey of riverine, or kachha, areas has already been completed, and families have been prepared to move into government schools, public buildings and tent villages. Some 948 relief camps have been set up across the province, equipped with food, clean water and health care services.
Houses are partially submerged following monsoon rains and rising water levels of the Sutlej River, in Chanda Singh Wala village near the Pakistan-India border in Kasur district of the Punjab province, Pakistan on August 29, 2025. (REUTERS)
“The public should keep information about nearby relief camps and evacuation routes with them,” CM Shah’s office quoted him as saying. “Farmers and locals should move their valuables and livestock to safer places in advance.”
Meanwhile, the Pakistan Meteorological Department (PMD) has warned that the ninth spell of monsoon rains will continue until Sept. 2. A monsoon low over Rajasthan in India and a strong westerly trough over northern Pakistan are expected to bring widespread heavy to very heavy rainfall in upper Punjab catchments.
“Forecasted rains have the potential to generate very high to extremely high flows in Rivers Sutlej, Ravi and Chenab… and produce urban flooding in Lahore, Gujranwala and Gujrat divisions,” the PMD said.
PUNJAB’S CRITICAL SITUATION
On Sunday morning, Punjab Provincial Disaster Management Authority chief Irfan Ali Kathia told reporters that a flow of around 900,000 cusecs was passing through the Chenab River in Punjab’s Jhang district, creating a “critical situation.”
Nearly 750,000 people have been evacuated from high-risk areas across the province, he said, as floods have submerged more than 2,200 villages and affected over two million residents in a week. Authorities in Sialkot have also suspended flight operations after floodwaters swamped the airport.
Residents look on after water levels receded along the right bank of the Ravi River, following recent floods caused by monsoon rains, in Lahore, Pakistan on August 31, 2025. (REUTERS)
“Flood water is being drained from the airport,” Muhammad Umair Khan, a spokesman for Sialkot Airport, said. “Air operations will remain temporarily suspended until 10 p.m. tomorrow.”
The NDMA said it had begun dispatching emergency rations to Punjab’s flood-hit districts in coordination with provincial authorities and the private sector. Convoys carrying 46-kilogram food packages, each containing 22 essential items, were sent to Wazirabad and Hafizabad, with deliveries to Narowal, Sialkot, Chiniot and Jhang also underway.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has directed the NDMA to scale up assistance and relief coordination with provinces.
Since June 26, Punjab has reported 209 deaths, second only to northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, where 484 people have died. Sindh has reported 58 fatalities, Gilgit-Baltistan 41, Azad Kashmir 29, Balochistan 25 and Islamabad eight, according to NDMA figures.
Floods leave women struggling in Pakistan’s relief camps
Monsoon rains over the past week swelled three major rivers that cut through the eastern Punjab province
The flooded rivers have affected mostly rural areas near their banks but heavy rain also flooded urban areas
Updated 13 min 14 sec ago
AFP
CHUNG: In a former classroom, now a makeshift relief camp, pregnant women take refuge from the floods that have ravaged eastern Pakistan, their bodies aching, eyes heavy with exhaustion and silent despair.
Waiting for the water that swallowed their homes to recede, women in Chung, a settlement on Lahore’s outskirts, have limited access to sanitary pads and essential medicines, including pregnancy-related care.
Shumaila Riaz, 19-years-old and seven months pregnant with her first child, spent the past four days in the relief camp, enduring pregnancy cramps.
“I wanted to think about the child I am going to have, but now, I am not even certain about my own future,” she told AFP.
Shumaila Riaz, 19-years-old and seven months pregnant flood-affected victim speaks during an interview with AFP at a makeshift relief camp at a school in Chung, Punjab province on August 31, 2025. In a former classroom, now a makeshift relief camp, pregnant women take refuge from the floods that have ravaged eastern Pakistan, their bodies aching, eyes heavy with exhaustion and silent despair. Waiting for the water that swallowed their homes to recede, women in Chung, a settlement on Lahore's outskirts, have limited access to sanitary pads and essential medicines, including pregnancy-related care. (AFP)
Clad in dirty clothes they have worn for days and with unbrushed hair, women huddle in the overcrowded school hosting more than 2,000 people, surrounded by mud and stagnant rainwater.
“My body aches a lot and I can’t get the medicines I want here,” said 19-year-old Fatima, mother to a one-year-old daughter and four months pregnant.
“I used to eat as I please, sleep as I please, walk as I please — that is all gone now. I can’t do that here,” added Fatima, who asked AFP not to use her real name.
Monsoon rains over the past week swelled three major rivers that cut through Punjab province, Pakistan’s agricultural heartland and home to nearly half of its 255 million people.
The number of affected people rose on Sunday to more than two million, according to provincial senior minister Marriyum Aurangzeb.
Around 750,000 people have been evacuated, of whom 115,000 were rescued by boat — making it the largest rescue operation in Punjab’s history, according to the provincial government.
The flooded rivers have affected mostly rural areas near their banks but heavy rain also flooded urban areas, including several parts of Lahore — the country’s second-largest city.
While South Asia’s seasonal monsoon brings rainfall that farmers depend on, climate change is making the phenomenon more erratic, and deadly, across the region.
Landslides and floods triggered by heavier-than-usual monsoon rains have killed more than 850 people nationwide since June.
The latest downpour has killed at least 32 people, the provincial minister said on Sunday.
Sleeping in tents held together with thin wooden sticks, women displaced by the floods struggle to get sanitary pads and clean clothes when theirs are stained by blood from their periods.
Menstruation remains a taboo topic in Pakistan, with many women discouraged from speaking about it.
“We are struggling to get pads for when we get our period. And even if we do, there are no proper bathrooms to use,” said Aleema Bibi, 35, as her baby slept on a sheet soiled with mud.
“We go to the homes nearby to use the bathroom,” she added.
A volunteer (C) distributes food to flood-affected people at a makeshift camp in Chung, in Pakistan’s Punjab province, on August 31, 2025. (AFP)
Jameela, who uses only one name, said she seeks privacy in a makeshift bathroom next to a cowshed.
“We wait for men in these homes to leave, so that we can go use the bathrooms and change our pads,” she said.
Outside the medical truck beside the relief camp, a concerned woman asked where to take her eight-month-pregnant daughter-in-law who had gone into labor, AFP journalists saw.
The pregnant women are also vulnerable to infectious diseases, according to doctors in the medical camp set up by a local NGO.
Flood-affected victims queue near a mobile health unit at a makeshift relief camp in Chung, Punjab province on August 31, 2025. (AFP)
“I receive around 200 to 300 patients every day with different infections and water-borne diseases,” said Fahad Abbas, 27, a doctor at the medical camp.
“There are a lot of patients here who are going through psychological trauma, especially women and children, after losing their homes.”
Even without the crisis of a flood, 675 babies under one month old die every day in Pakistan, along with 27 women in perinatal stages from preventable complications, according to the World Health Organization.
Flood-affected people stand in a queue outside a mobile health unit at a makeshift camp in Chung, in Pakistan’s Punjab province, on August 31, 2025. (AFP)
Another woman, who wanted to stay anonymous, said the medicine she once used to manage her period cramps was now too difficult to buy.
“We escaped death, but this misery is no less than death either,” Jameela said.
ISLAMABAD: Asian Development Bank (ADB) President Masato Kanda said this week that the institution’s $410 million financing package for Pakistan’s Reko Diq copper mine will create thousands of jobs in the country and position it to be a key supplier of critical minerals.
Located in Pakistan’s largest province by land but also its poorest, Balochistan, Reko Diq is among the world’s biggest untapped deposits of copper and gold. The project is expected to generate approximately $74 billion in free cash flow over the next 37 years.
Kanda confirmed in a video message on Saturday that the package to develop the copper mine was approved last week. Islamabad hopes the mine will serve as a springboard to draw more foreign interest to its mineral sector, particularly to exploit rare earth deposits.
“ADB’s $410 million financing package for Reko Diq, approved last week, will create thousands of jobs while positioning Pakistan as a key supplier of critical minerals,” Kanda said.
Honored to be received as a State Guest in Pakistan this week.
I explored how is supporting Pakistan’s growing role in global critical mineral value chains and the clean energy transition through the Reko Diq project. And in response to the devastating floods I witnessed…
— Masato Kanda (@ADBPresident)
Kanda, who visited Pakistan this week as a state guest, spoke about his brief visit to the country. The ADB official said he met Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, during which he conveyed his condolences at the loss of lives due to the devastating floods in the country.
“We also discussed transformative investments, enhanced private sector engagement, and Pakistan’s role as a strategic supplier of critical minerals for the global clean energy transition,” Kanda said.
Pakistan has strived to attract international investors to its critical minerals sector in recent months. Islamabad has already attracted interest from the Trump administration and offered future concessions to US companies.
As per a report in the international news agency Reuters this month, the ADB loans and financing guarantee will support Reko Diq’s development. The report said that the financing is composed of two loans totaling $300 million to Barrick and a $110 million financing guarantee for the Pakistani government.
Canada-based Barrick Gold company owns a 50 percent stake in the Reko Diq mine and the governments of Pakistan and Balochistan own the other 50 percent.
The project is expected to start production by the end of 2028 and will produce 200,000 tons of copper per year in its first phase, with an estimated cost of $5.5 billion. The first phase is expected to be completed by 2029, Barrick’s CEO Mark Bristow told Pakistani digital media outlet Dawn News English in January.
A second phase, estimated to cost $3.5 billion, will double production, he added.
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s government has disbursed Rs251.25 billion [$890 million] in loans among 434,000 young entrepreneurs since 2013, state-run media reported on Sunday, saying the initiative aimed to boost the country’s economic prospects.
The Prime Minister’s Youth Programme’s (PMYP) scheme collaborated with 15 different banks across the country. As per this scheme, the government provides interest-free microfinance loans and low-interest loans to aspiring entrepreneurs.
“In a major step to empower youth, the Prime Minister’s Youth Programme (PMYP) has disbursed a staggering Rs 251.25 billion to over 434,000 young entrepreneurs since 2013, catapulting a new generation of Pakistanis into the forefront of the country’s economic landscape,” the state-run Associated Press of Pakistan (APP) reported.
The report said that the scheme has provided young Pakistanis a chance to become “successful entrepreneurs” and contribute to the country’s economic growth.
In March this year, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif launched the “Digital Youth Hub” portal in Islamabad. The initiative connects young people to jobs, education and enhances skills development in the country.
Estimates suggest approximately 64 percent of Pakistan’s population is under the age of 30, offering a significant opportunity to drive economic growth through a young workforce contributing to entrepreneurship, innovation and diversification.
The South Asian country has attempted to revive its economy by reinvigorating its small-and-medium enterprises sector in recent months. A thriving SME sector reduces unemployment, increases the GDP growth of a country, boosts exports and reduces dependency on large multinationals or established corporations.
ISLAMABAD: President Asif Ali Zardari on Sunday gave his assent to a controversial bill that empowers security agencies to detain suspects of “terrorism” and other serious crimes for up to three months, his office confirmed, saying the move would help security agencies maintain law and order.
Pakistan’s upper house of parliament or Senate approved amendments to the Anti-Terrorism Act (ATA) bill earlier this month. Law Minister Azam Nazeer Tarar had defended the bill by saying it created a lawful framework for preventive detention that would strengthen counterterrorism operations.
Enforced disappearances have long been a contentious issue in Pakistan, particularly in its southwestern Balochistan province, which has been the site of a decades-old separatist insurgency. Families and rights groups there have often accused state institutions of arbitrary detentions and extrajudicial killings. Authorities deny the allegations, but the practice has remained a source of domestic and international criticism.
“President Asif Ali Zardari has assented to the Anti-Terrorism (Amendment) Bill, 2025,” the president’s official account on X wrote.
“The law strengthens security agencies’ ability to counter terrorism, ensures transparency in detentions with a 3-year sunset clause, and introduces judicial oversight & safeguards.”
President Asif Ali Zardari has assented to the Anti-Terrorism (Amendment) Bill, 2025. The law strengthens security agencies’ ability to counter terrorism, ensures transparency in detentions with a 3-year sunset clause, and introduces judicial oversight & safeguards.
— The President of Pakistan (@PresOfPakistan)
According to Pakistan’s parliamentary procedures and law, a bill passed by both houses of parliament requires the president’s assent to officially become law. The bill was passed earlier this month by Pakistan’s National Assembly before it was presented in the Senate.
The government has said the new law will replace illegal practices and address concerns raised by families of “missing persons.”
WHAT THE LAW SAYS
The amendment allows the government, armed forces and civil armed forces to place terrorism suspects under preventive detention for up to 90 days, based on credible information or reasonable suspicion. Enforcement in provinces will require approval from respective governments, and detainees will have legal recourse through federal and provincial review boards made up of Supreme Court and high court judges.
The bill also gives legal cover to joint interrogation teams (JITs) comprising officials from multiple law enforcement and intelligence agencies, with the aim of making operations more effective.
Opposition parties, including jailed former prime minister Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), strongly opposed the amendment in the Senate when it was presented for voting, warning that it could be misused against government critics.
The development takes place as Pakistan battles twin insurgencies in its northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) and Balochistan provinces. The country has seen a spike in militant attacks ever since a fragile truce between the state and the Pakistani Taliban broke down in November 2022.
Meanwhile, ethnic Baloch separatist groups in Balochistan demand independence from Islamabad, accusing the center of robbing the local population of the province’s natural resources.
Pakistan’s civilian government and military strongly deny the allegations and say that several health, education and infrastructure projects are in place in Balochistan to help its population.
