ShareISLAMABAD: Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan left for Saudi Arabia to attend an investment conference boycotted by other leaders over the death of journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. Khan told an interviewer before leaving he was concerned at Khashoggi's death but could not skip the conference because "we're desperate" for possible Saudi loans to shore up Pakistan's economy.
It is Khan's second visit to Saudi Arabia in just over a month, but he has not succeeded in securing significant financial assistance to stave off a looming balance of payment crisis. Khan told the Middle East Eye in an interview published yesterday that he could not pass up the invitation to meet Saudi leaders again. "The reason I feel I have to avail myself of this opportunity is because in a country of 210 million people right now we have the worst debt crisis in our history," he was quoted as saying.
"Unless we get loans from friendly countries or the IMF (International Monetary Fund), we actually won't have in another two or three months enough foreign exchange to service our debts or to pay for our imports. So we're desperate at the moment." Finance Minister Asad Umar and Commerce Minister Abdul Razak Dawood are accompanying Khan, a statement from Khan's office said yesterday, adding it "will give a chance to connect with those people who are interested in investing in Pakistan".
Islamabad has already asked the IMF to open negotiations for the country's second potential bailout in five years. Khan, who took office in July, still has been seeking alternatives to the tough conditions the IMF is likely to impose for loans, limiting his vision of an Islamic welfare state. The central bank's foreign reserves dropped this month to $8.1 billion, a four-year low and barely enough to cover sovereign debt payments due through the end of the year. The current account deficit has swelled to about $18 billion.
Khan has blamed the previous government's policies for the ballooning current account deficit. He told the Middle East Eye that he was concerned over the "shocking" death of Khashoggi, a US resident and Washington Post columnist, after he entered the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. "The Saudi government will have to come up with an answer... We wait for whatever the Saudi explanation is," he was quoted as saying. "We hope there is an explanation that satisfies people and those responsible are punished." Khan also called on Washington to abandon its push for new sanctions against Iran, Saudi Arabia's regional rival, saying the move could lead to wider conflict. "The last thing the Muslim world needs is another conflict. The Trump administration is moving towards one," he told the newspaper.
Starting today, the three-day Future Investment Initiative (FII) in Riyadh was meant to project the historically insular petro-state as a lucrative business destination as it seeks to diversify and set the stage for new ventures and multi-billion dollar contracts. But the summit, nicknamed "Davos in the desert", has been overshadowed by growing global outrage over the murder of Khashoggi.
The chief executive of German industrial conglomerate Siemens Joe Kaeser was the latest among dozens of global executives to withdraw from the summit, hosted by the kingdom's sovereign wealth fund. "It's the cleanest decision but not the most courageous one," Kaeser wrote in a post on social network LinkedIn of his choice not to attend FII. "For now, the truth must be found and justice must be served."
But many Western firms have too much at stake to abandon the Arab world's biggest economy, and some are preparing to send lower-level executives to the summit. Senior investment bankers from HSBC and Credit Suisse are planning to attend the conference even though their chief executives have cancelled their attendance, Bloomberg News reported. Companies from China and Russia have shown little interest in withdrawing from the event, an organizer said. - Agencies
