Pakistan needs to repay China more than double amount it owes IMF

Pakistan needs to repay China more than double the amount it owes the International Monetary Fund in the next three years, as loans racked-up to boost foreign exchange reserves and bridge a financing gap become due.

The South Asian nation owes $6.7 billion in commercial loans to China over the three years through June 2022, according to the IMF, which this year approved a new program to bail out Pakistan from a crisis. Islamabad needs to pay the multilateral lender $2.8 billion in the same period.

Pakistan, one of the biggest beneficiaries of China’s Belt and Road Initiative, has been borrowing from