China is paralysing global debt-forgiveness efforts
Restructurings have all but disappeared
Given that his country is on the brink, Mohammad Ishaq Dar, Pakistan’s economy minister, is strangely serene. In the week to January 20th, his government burned through a quarter of its dollar reserves, leaving $3.5bn to cover loan repayments and imports that will probably come to more than twice that in the first quarter of the year. Two days later ministers turned off the electricity grid to preserve fuel. Policymakers then abandoned a currency peg. The rupee plummeted, but Mr Ishaq Dar remained cool. Pakistan’s prosperity, he said, is in God’s hands.
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This article appeared in the Finance & economics section of the print edition under the headline “No relief in sight”
Finance & economics
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