KARACHI: Pakistan’s Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb on Tuesday requested expedited disbursements under the Saudi Oil Facility in a meeting with Sultan bin Abdulrahman Al-Murshid, the top official at the Saudi Fund for Development (SFD), on the sidelines of the IMF-World Bank Spring Meetings in Washington.
The facility, agreed earlier this year, enables Pakistan to defer up to $1.2 billion in oil import payments, offering critical support to its foreign reserves amid a fragile economic recovery.
The SFD, a state-owned Saudi institution, provides concessional loans and grants to developing countries and has been a long-time financier of infrastructure and energy projects in Pakistan.
“The Minister requested expedited disbursements under the Saudi Oil Facility and assured the provision of evidence of oil shipments,” the finance ministry said in a statement issued Wednesday.
Aurangzeb noted that Pakistan’s macroeconomic outlook had improved, pointing to Moody’s recent upgrade of the country’s credit rating to B- with a stable outlook.
Pakistan and Saudi Arabia signed 27 memorandums of understanding (MoUs) worth $2.2 billion in early October 2024 during the Saudi investment minister’s visit to Islamabad.
The number and value of these deals increased later that month during Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s visit to Riyadh, reaching 34 MoUs with a total projected investment of $2.8 billion.
By December, seven of these had been converted into agreements valued at $560 million, with several already under implementation at both the government-to-government (G2G) and business-to-business (B2B) levels.
During his meeting with the top SFD official, the Pakistani finance chief recalled his participation in the Al-Ula Conference on Emerging Markets held in Saudi Arabia in February, where he met with senior Saudi officials, including the kingdom’s finance minister, to expand economic cooperation.
During their conversation, Aurangzeb reviewed the SFD’s ongoing development portfolio in Pakistan and expressed satisfaction with the pace of implementation.
He also sought the SFD’s financial support for the National Highway N-25 infrastructure project.
 

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan on Wednesday voiced concern over the killing of civilians in Indian-administered Kashmir, after at least 26 people were gunned down by unidentified assailants at a tourist site in the region’s deadliest attack on non-combatants in decades.
The shooting occurred Tuesday afternoon in Pahalgam, a popular resort town in the Anantnag district, when armed men emerged from forest cover and opened fire on crowds of mostly domestic tourists.
Indian officials said the attack bore the hallmarks of an organized militant assault, though no group claimed responsibility for it. Survivors described a calculated and prolonged attack, with gunmen selectively targeting men and sparing women.
“We are concerned at the loss of tourists’ lives in an attack in Anantnag district of Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir,” the foreign office of Pakistan said in a statement.
“We extend our condolences to the near ones of the deceased and wish the injured a speedy recovery,” it added.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who cut short a state visit to Saudi Arabia in response, called the attack a “heinous act” and pledged that the perpetrators would be brought to justice.
Such attacks have historically strained ties between India and Pakistan, two nuclear-armed rivals with a long-standing dispute over Kashmir. In 2019, a suicide bombing in Pulwama killed 40 Indian paramilitary personnel and triggered cross-border air strikes, pushing the neighbors to the brink of war.
New Delhi has repeatedly blamed Islamabad for backing militant groups operating in the region, an allegation Pakistan denies, insisting it supports only the political aspirations of Kashmiris.
On Wednesday, India’s army also reported killing two gunmen in a separate incident near the Line of Control, the de facto border separating the Pakistani and Indian sides of Kashmir, in Baramulla district, describing it as a foiled infiltration attempt.
Kashmir has been divided between India and Pakistan since 1947, with both countries claiming it in full. A violent separatist insurgency has simmered in the Indian-administered part since the late 1980s, although militant violence had declined in recent years.
Tuesday’s attack has also promoted global reaction, with US President Donald Trump and EU chief Ursula von der Leyen condemning the violence and pledging support for India in pursuing the assailants.