Pakistan’s External Debt Nearly Doubles Over the Past Decade, Surpassing $135 Billion According to World Bank Report; China Remains the Country’s Largest Bilateral Creditor
ISLAMABAD : The World Bank’s just released International Debt Report reveals that Pakistan’s external debt has almost doubled in the last decade, rising from $68.7 billion in 2015 to more than $135.1 billion by the end of 2025. The extensive global report shows that Pakistan is still heavily dependent on external financing sources for macroeconomic commitments, China being the country’s biggest bilateral creditor.
Creditors and outstanding obligations: China is Pakistan’s biggest bilateral creditor with $22.4 billion in outstanding debt. Also, Pakistan has $19.2 billion debt to the World Bank, and $16.8 billion to Asian Development Bank (ADB). Overall, multilateral creditors account for $56.8 billion, bilateral lenders for $42.4 billion, and private creditors for $7.8 billion.
The external debt stock is broken down as follows: $107.1 billion of public debt, $17.6 billion of private non-guaranteed debt and $10.5 billion of short-term debt. Lending Terms and Cost Disparities: The official lenders provide much softer terms on average, with a loan maturity of 16 years and a grace period of four years, and have an average interest rate of 3.6 percent. By comparison, the private market’s average interest rate on loans of three years is 8.6 percent.
Rollovers and Support in 2025: China’s maturing loans rolled over for $2 billion and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) disbursed $2.3 billion in new financing under active economic programs. Global Debt Trends: The external debt of low and middle-income countries grew by 5.5 percent to reach a record $9.4 trillion, due to growing debt-service pressures and increasing debt repayment costs.