ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb this week met the CEO of the Saudi Fund for Development (SFD) to reaffirm Pakistan’s strategic partnership with the Kingdom as Islamabad seeks to deepen ties with one of its most important development and financing partners amid a renewed push to attract investment and support reforms.
Saudi Arabia has long been a pillar of Pakistan’s external financing and household income mix. SFD says it has financed more than 18 development projects and programs worth about $1.2 billion, alongside over $533 million in grants since 1976.
“Senator Aurangzeb also met H.E. Sultan Abdulrahman Al-Marshad ... where he reaffirmed the strategic partnership between Pakistan and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia,” the finance division said in a statement after the meeting between the Pakistani finance minister and SFD CEO.
The meeting formed part of the finance minister’s broader Washington schedule on the sidelines of the IMF–World Bank Annual Meetings, where Pakistan has pressed its case for investment, climate-resilient development, and support for a reform program aimed at stabilizing growth and strengthening the external account.
Aurangzeb’s discussion with Al-Marshad also covered infrastructure priorities, notably the M-6 highway and the ML-1 railway line upgrade, as well as skills development and digital infrastructure, areas aligned with Pakistan’s broader push to improve logistics, productivity and public service delivery. SFD, for its part, has highlighted ongoing health, hydropower and transport initiatives in Pakistan and notes that in 2024 it signed 17 loan agreements worth SR3.7 billion (approximately $985 million) across 13 countries, signaling continued capacity to support partner economies.
The meeting underscores a decades-long relationship that blends development lending with short-term balance-of-payments support. SFD notes cumulative Pakistan operations spanning social infrastructure, transport, energy, water and sanitation. The Kingdom has also supported Pakistan with a $3 billion State Bank deposit, repeatedly rolled over, most recently in December 2024, and deferred oil payments of about $1.2 billion under a facility agreed in February 2025 to ease near-term pressures.
Meanwhile, about 2.64 million Pakistanis live and work in Saudi Arabia, and the Kingdom is the largest single source of workers’ remittances to Pakistan.
According to the State Bank of Pakistan, remittances from Saudi Arabia totaled around $737 million in August 2025 and $751 million in September 2025, the highest among all source countries.
