Azhar Rashid Khan, PSP

Pakistan’s recurring economic crises are usually diagnosed the same way: too little national savings, too little exported output, too much consumption, and too much debt. The prescribed remedy, repeated across successive IMF programmes, is a familiar cycle — borrow, stabilise, impose austerity, recover briefly, and borrow again. By March 2026, Pakistan’s external debt stock stood near $92 billion on the government’s own reckoning, with total external debt and liabilities reported closer to $138 billion once IMF obligations and other liabilities are included (ARY News; Mettis Global). Domestic debt has grown even faster, with federal government debt alone rising 75.