Pak EXIM ties up with ICIEC, sets up Rs3 billion pool to wid

Financing cover is meant to deepen risk-sharing at home and put export credit insurance against buyer default within reach of more small and medium enterprises. Two new agreements have widened the financing support available to Pakistani exporters, one a reinsurance tie-up linking the Export-Import Bank of Pakistan with the Islamic Corporation for the Insurance of Investment and Export Credit, the other an SME Risk Pool of roughly Rs 3 billion set up jointly by the Export Development Fund and Pak EXIM. Federal Minister for Finance Senator Muhammad Aurangzeb said the economy had begun shifting from stabilisation to growth. Output rose 3.7% in FY26, and the fiscal deficit came down to 2.6% of GDP, a level not seen in 22 years. The country has also run a primary surplus in each of the past three years. Aurangzeb said there was now a window to leave behind the cycle of booms and busts that reliance on imports has produced. The main task, in his view, was to put growth on a durable footing by leaning on exports and the private sector. He said exporters could still borrow at 4.5% even after the policy rate had shifted. Established export sectors needed continued backing, he said, alongside a push into fresh products, services and destinations. He placed particular weight on opening up competitively priced credit to small and medium enterprises sitting within exporters' value chains. On services, the minister cited technology exports of roughly $4.6 billion and about $1.7 billion earned by freelancers. Adding gradually to a goods export base of $30 billion would not take the country far enough, he said. The reinsurance arrangement, which Aurangzeb welcomed, was signed by ICIEC Chief Executive Officer Dr Khalid Khalafalla and Pak EXIM President Shahbaz Hussain Syed. He said it would give Pakistan access to global know-how in managing credit and political risk. The Rs 3 billion pool for smaller firms was signed by Export Development Fund Chairman Omar Saeed and Syed. It is meant to deepen risk-sharing at home and put export credit insurance against buyer default within reach of more small and medium enterprises. Aurangzeb said the export goal lay beyond the reach of any one body acting alone, and called for exporters, commercial banks, the EDF, Pak EXIM, the State Bank of Pakistan and the government to work as a single connected system. Syed said the tie-up with ICIEC would give Pak EXIM more room to underwrite, and that the EDF pool would let a greater number of smaller firms insure themselves against buyer default.