Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb on Monday has said that the country is preparing to launch yuan-denominated bonds (panda bonds) this year to shore up its finances, a Bloomberg report confirmed.
The country is planning to raise $200 million to $250m from Chinese investors over the next six to nine months, the finance minister told Bloomberg in an interview.
Panda bonds are a type of debt security issued by foreign entities in the Chinese capital markets, and they are denominated in Chinese yuan (RMB).
In March last year, Aurangzeb had announced that Pakistan was keen to tap Chinese investors by selling as much as $300 million in panda bonds.
These bonds allow foreign issuers, including multinational corporations, international financial institutions, and sovereign governments, to access capital from Chinese investors.
“The country is very keen, to tap the Panda bonds and the Chinese capital markets,” Muhammad Aurangzeb said according to the report. “We have been remiss as a country not to tap it previously.”
Speaking on the sidelines of the Asian Financial Forum in Hong Kong, Aurangzeb also confirmed that that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) mission is scheduled to visit Pakistan next month, adding that it wanted the country to broaden its tax base and reach a tax-to-GDP ratio of 13.5 per cent, from 10pc in December.
