Head bowed, self-respect compromised: Pakistan PM on international mortgage humiliation

In search of international mortgage had pressured Pakistan to “bow” its head and make compromises on the “price of self-respect”, nation’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has mentioned in a candid admission in regards to the humiliation concerned in approaching “pleasant international locations” for monetary assist.

Addressing a ceremony held in honour of the nation’s eminent businessmen and exporters in Islamabad on Friday (January 30, 2026), Mr. Sharif recalled the troublesome interval when Pakistan confronted fears of chapter and was described by some as being on the verge of technical default.

“Once we assumed workplace, the financial scenario was extraordinarily fragile, and the frequent man confronted extreme hardships,” he mentioned.

Pakistan’s Prime Minister referred to his assembly with the Managing Director of the Worldwide Financial Fund (IMF) in Paris in 2023, after which the worldwide lender authorised an financial programme that helped stabilise the nation’s financial system.

Mr. Sharif mentioned pleasant international locations had totally supported Pakistan throughout troublesome instances and that, along with the Chief of Military Workers and Chief of Defence Forces, Discipline Marshal Asim Munir, he had met leaders of a number of international locations to hunt loans price billions of {dollars}.

Nevertheless, he mentioned, “How ought to I inform the way in which we requested pleasant international locations for loans? The pleasant international locations did not disappoint us. However the one who goes to hunt a mortgage, his head is bowed down.”

Mr. Sharif mentioned loans additionally create obligations that must be fulfilled.

“If you go searching for loans, you must pay the worth at the price of your self-respect. It’s important to compromise… Generally, undue demand could come up, and you must implement it even when there isn’t any cause to fulfil it,” he mentioned.

Pakistan closely depends on monetary assist from a number of international locations, together with China, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Qatar, to handle its international change reserves and debt. These nations, together with the IMF, present common loans and rollovers to the cash-strapped nation.

In the course of the occasion, he rolled out reduction measures for industries, together with a discount of PKR 4.04 per unit in electrical energy tariffs, and mentioned the wheeling costs can be introduced right down to PKR 9 to spice up exports and help the enterprise neighborhood.

He additional mentioned the federal government was decreasing the export refinance scheme price from 7.5% to 4.5% to supply speedy reduction to companies and speed up export-led progress.