Saudi Pakistan Crisis: friend Saudi Arabia gave a big blow to poor Pakistan, now it will not beg for loan unconditionally, China also sided

Islamabad: Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif and Army Chief Aseem Munir have suffered a major setback. Saudi Arabia has indicated that it will no longer provide unconditional financial assistance to its allies in the future. Saudi Arabia said that it is working on a big plan to strengthen its economy. Saudi Arabia’s Finance Minister said on Wednesday that his country is now changing the earlier policy of direct financial aid. Apart from this, will not deposit money unconditionally in any other country. Earlier, Saudi Arabia had given billions of dollars in aid to Pakistan and had deposited billions of dollars in its foreign exchange reserves.

Saudi Arabia’s Finance Minister Mohammed Al Jadan told the World Economic Forum in Davos that Saudi Arabia is encouraging countries in the region to implement economic reforms. He said, ‘Till now we used to give direct financial assistance to our associates without any conditions and also used to deposit money with them. We’re changing that. We are working with multilateral institutions to bring about reforms. The Saudi minister said that we are now imposing taxes on our people.

Al Jadan said that we are expecting others to do the same as part of their efforts. We want to help but we also want you to do your part. Tell that not only Saudi Arabia but UAE and Qatar are also now emphasizing on the policy of investing in their ally country instead of giving direct financial aid. Because of this now Pakistan will have to sell its companies and other things. Earlier Saudi media had said that it intends to take its investment in Pakistan to $10 billion.

Apart from this, Saudi Arabia will deposit $5 billion in the Central Bank of Pakistan. With this new stand of Saudi, Pakistan is now sure to sweat in taking dollar bailout in future. Saudi has so far rescued Pakistan from this crisis many times but now it wants Pakistan to join the IMF program. Not only this, China is also refraining from giving unconditional bailout to Pakistan. The danger for the Prime Minister of Pakistan is that if he joins the IMF program, inflation will increase by about 70 percent in the country. This would make it almost impossible for him to win the election. This is the reason why Shahbaz is avoiding this decision.