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Time of India
10-06-2025
- Business
- Time of India
Debt-laden Pakistan spikes defence budget by 20%
Live Events (You can now subscribe to our (You can now subscribe to our Economic Times WhatsApp channel Pakistan increased its defence outlay by 20% in the annual budget presented on Tuesday, even as the debt-laden country earmarked nearly half of the funds for interest comes close on the heels of significant damage to the country's airbases and air defence systems in the strikes carried out by India as part of Operation Sindoor last 47% of the $63 billion budget will go towards servicing debt, with defence being the second biggest head with an allocation of $9.17 billion or 14.5% of the total the Shehbaz Sharif government reduced overall projected expenditure in this budget, it increased the outlay on defence substantially. Despite the increase, Pakistan's defence budget is a fraction of India's defence spending, which has been pegged at more than $77 billion for this financial clearly spelled out in its economic survey report released on Monday, Pakistan is burdened with debt service payments, with China being the biggest single lender. China is also the largest supplier of weapons to Pakistan, with almost 80% of its arsenal originating from the recent conflict with India as well, the majority of weapons used by Pakistan, including HQ 9 surface-to-air missiles and J10 fighter jets, were acquired on lenient terms from China. Pakistan is expected to use a large part of its increased defence budget to purchase weapons from China, including replacements for destroyed air defence radars and launchers. It is also likely to incur costs to repair its airfields and other infrastructure that bore the brunt of the Indian missiles during Operation year, too, Pakistan had increased its defence budget significantly, by 16.4%, even as it was seeking a bailout deal from the International Monetary Fund to avert an economic Delhi: Pakistan increased its defence outlay by 20% in the annual budget presented on Tuesday, even as the debt-laden country earmarked nearly half of the funds for interest comes close on the heels of significant damage to the country's airbases and air defence systems in the strikes carried out by India as part of Operation Sindoor last 47% of the $63 billion budget will go towards servicing debt, with defence being the second biggest head with an allocation of $9.17 billion or 14.5% of the total the Shehbaz Sharif government reduced overall projected expenditure in this budget, it increased the outlay on defence substantially. Despite the increase, Pakistan's defence budget is a fraction of India's defence spending, which has been pegged at more than $77 billion for this financial clearly spelled out in its economic survey report released on Monday, Pakistan is burdened with debt service payments, with China being the biggest single lender. China is also the largest supplier of weapons to Pakistan, with almost 80% of its arsenal originating from the recent conflict with India as well, the majority of weapons used by Pakistan, including HQ 9 surface-to-air missiles and J10 fighter jets, were acquired on lenient terms from China. Pakistan is expected to use a large part of its increased defence budget to purchase weapons from China, including replacements for destroyed air defence radars and launchers. It is also likely to incur costs to repair its airfields and other infrastructure that bore the brunt of the Indian missiles during Operation year, too, Pakistan had increased its defence budget significantly, by 16.4%, even as it was seeking a bailout deal from the International Monetary Fund to avert an economic collapse.


Time of India
09-06-2025
- Business
- Time of India
Despite soaring debt signal in Economic Survey, Pakistan defence budget may shoot
Laden with an ever-increasing external debt that has reached $87.4 billion, Pakistan is spending over 1.9% of its gross domestic product (GDP) in debt service payments, with the biggest single lender being China, the latest economic survey released by the Shehbaz Sharif government says. Despite the mounting external debt, Pakistan is expected to sharply hike its defence spending in the upcoming budget. Last year too, Pakistan increased its defence budget by a whopping 16.4%, even as it was seeking a bailout deal from International Monetary Fund to avert a complete collapse of its economy. This time around, the increase is likely to be higher, given that IMF bailout has been secured and the country has faced significant damage to its airbases and air defence systems in the strikes carried out by India as part of Operation Sindoor. Indian defence budget is pegged at 1.9% of its GDP, a number that New Delhi has kept in check, with defence spending not exceeding the 2% mark for years. Play Video Pause Skip Backward Skip Forward Unmute Current Time 0:00 / Duration 0:00 Loaded : 0% 0:00 Stream Type LIVE Seek to live, currently behind live LIVE Remaining Time - 0:00 1x Playback Rate Chapters Chapters Descriptions descriptions off , selected Captions captions settings , opens captions settings dialog captions off , selected Audio Track default , selected Picture-in-Picture Fullscreen This is a modal window. Beginning of dialog window. Escape will cancel and close the window. Text Color White Black Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Opacity Opaque Semi-Transparent Text Background Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Opacity Opaque Semi-Transparent Transparent Caption Area Background Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Opacity Transparent Semi-Transparent Opaque Font Size 50% 75% 100% 125% 150% 175% 200% 300% 400% Text Edge Style None Raised Depressed Uniform Drop shadow Font Family Proportional Sans-Serif Monospace Sans-Serif Proportional Serif Monospace Serif Casual Script Small Caps Reset restore all settings to the default values Done Close Modal Dialog End of dialog window. As per Pakistan's economic survey, it paid $7.8 billion in external debt service payments in the last financial year, with China getting just $602 million despite being the single largest lender, with outstanding loans worth over $15 billion. China is the largest supplier of weapons to Pakistan, with almost 80% of its arsenal originating from Beijing. In the recent conflict with India, the majority of weapons used by Pakistan that included HQ9 surface-to-air missiles and J10 fighter jets were acquired on lenient terms from China. Pakistan's total debt is pegged at $269 billion, with most of it being internal. On the external front, the country owes other nations and multilateral agencies nearly $87.4 billion. Among bilateral lenders, the biggest amount is owed to China ($15 billion), followed by Japan at $3 billion and France at just over $1 billion. Among multilateral lenders, Pakistan owes $18 billion to IDA and $16 billion to ADB.