LONDON: A group of prominent former emerging market finance chiefs is pressing global leaders to incorporate external shocks and climate change into debt sustainability calculations, according to a letter published on Wednesday.
The signatories, former central bankers and finance ministers mostly from emerging economies from India to Argentina, also called for debt relief to enable struggling emerging economies to meet climate investment targets.
“Every civilization faces what seems to be an impossible hurdle that threatens its existence,” Patrick Njoroge, former governor of Kenya’s central bank, said in the letter.
“We face such a moment, given the global debt crisis and the limited space for the required investments in climate action and the Sustainable Development Goals.”
The World Bank has warned that high borrowing costs and slowing growth have sparked a “silent debt crisis” that has thrown climate, health and education spending goals into question across the developing world.
The 21 signatories included Nigeria’s Lamido Sanusi, Colombia’s Jose Antonio Ocampo, Pakistan’s Reza Baqir, Argentina’s Martin Guzman and South Africa’s Tito Mboweni.
Zambia this week became the first poor nation to emerge from debt default under a rubric designed by the G20 dubbed the Common Framework.
But some have said the debt relief — estimated to have reduced Zambia’s debt by some $900 million and spread future payments over a much longer time frame — was insufficient.
The letter is asking for the Common Framework to give countries fair, comparable debt relief from all creditors, with the relief sufficient to allow countries to meet climate and investment spending needs.
The International Monetary Fund is also in the midst of a years-long revamp of the way it calculates debt sustainability analyzes — figures that form the baseline to determining how much debt relief lenders must give to defaulted countries.
These have been criticized in recent months and years by some investors and experts.
The Debt Relief for Green and Inclusive Recovery Project (DRGR), which organized the letter, released a study earlier this year that found emerging countries will pay a record $400 billion to service external debt in 2024.
It said 47 of them cannot spend the money they need for climate adaptation and sustainable development without risking default in the next five years.
“It is time for G20 leaders to spearhead comprehensive debt relief and mobilize new financing to uphold sustainable development and climate objectives,” Wednesday’s letter read.
Former central bankers from emerging countries, including Pakistan, call for debt reworks
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Former central bankers from emerging countries, including Pakistan, call for debt reworks
- Ex-emerging market finance chiefs press world leaders to incorporate external shocks into debt sustainability
- Twenty-one signatories to the letter include Pakistan’s former central bank chief Reza Baqir
PIA to resume Lahore-London flights in March after six-year hiatus
- Move follows the award of a 75% controlling stake in the airline to a local consortium in December
- PIA has already announced the launch of three weekly flights from Islamabad to London from Mar. 29
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) said on Thursday it will resume direct flights from Lahore to London from March 30, restarting a key international route after a six-year break as the national carrier rebuilds its network following the lifting of restrictions on Pakistani airlines.
The resumption comes after Britain lifted curbs on Pakistani carriers in July, nearly half a decade after flights were grounded following a 2020 PIA Airbus A320 crash in Karachi that killed 97 people. The disaster was followed by claims of irregularities in pilot licensing, prompting bans by aviation authorities in the UK, European Union and United States.
“The first flight, PK-757, will depart from Lahore to London on March 30,” PIA said in a statement. “Flights from Lahore to London will land at Heathrow Airport’s Terminal 4. Services are being resumed after a gap of six years.”
PIA said London was among the airline’s earliest international destinations and that the restart of Lahore-London operations would raise the carrier’s total weekly flights to the UK to seven, compared with 10 weekly flights before the suspension. The airline said the frequency of London-bound flights would be increased gradually.
PIA has already announced the launch of three weekly flights from Islamabad to London starting March 29, the statement said.
The restart of UK operations comes as Pakistan privatized PIA. Last month, a consortium led by the Arif Habib Group won the bid for a 75% controlling stake in the airline, offering 135 billion rupees ($482 million) in a deal the government described as a milestone in its broader privatization drive.
