CACrown ArchivesThe cinema collection
Menu
Research dossier · History & Society

National debt of Pakistan

total unpaid borrowed funds carried by the Government of Pakistan

Layered newspapers, civic records and oral-history reels arranged as chronological evidence
History and societyInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJul 25, 2026
Entity authorityQ85787997 ↗
Source-derived summary

The national debt of Pakistan (Urdu: قومی قرضہ جاتِ پاکستان), or simply Pakistani debt, is the total public debt, or unpaid borrowed funds carried by the Government of Pakistan, which includes measurement as the face value of the currently outstanding treasury bills (T-bills) that have been issued by the federal government.

History

In 2008 when Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) had won the election, Pakistan's debt was Rs. 6,435 billion which increased by 135% in the next five years of PPP tenure, and became Rs. 15,096 billion in 2013. Majority of this increase in debt was in domestic debt in which external debt of Pakistan increased by 22 percent, from US$42.8 billion in 2008 to US$52.4 billion in 2013. PPP government was dependent on domestic and international lending to meet the needs of the government expenditures. Total debt increased to 64 percent of the GDP but external debt as a percentage of GDP decreased from 29.5 percent to 23.4 percent.

After 2013 Pakistani general election, Nawaz Sharif came to power. During their rule of five years, Pakistan's external debt increased from US$52.4 billion to US$75.3 billion, an increase of 144 percent, mainly due to the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, for which loans were taken from China and all contracts awarded only to Chinese companies, the consequent high imports from China (not offset by any significant exports to China), and also Sukuk bonds.

After 2018 Pakistani general election, Imran Khan came to power.

Editorial summary

“National debt of Pakistan” enters the record as total unpaid borrowed funds carried by the Government of Pakistan. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what National, debt and Pakistan can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA useful synthesis for locating the documentary relationships between formal authority, participants and affected communities. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—2008, 2013, 2018—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its strongest next move is a source search built around National, debt and Pakistan.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“National debt of Pakistan” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, National, debt and Pakistan provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Contemporary correspondence, administrative files and participant testimony can test how later narratives organized the event or institution. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 25, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q85787997. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2008, 2013 and 2018.

Critical limits

Official terminology may obscure informal participation, dissent or communities documented only indirectly. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Compare institutional narratives with records created by participants and affected communities. Dates and formal titles are useful anchors, but not substitutes for context.

Best used for
  • Event chronology
  • Institutional context
  • Locating named record creators
Verify next

Contemporary correspondence, government or organizational records, oral histories and cited historical scholarship.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “National debt of Pakistan”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow National debt of Pakistan primary sources, National debt of Pakistan archive and National research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “National debt of Pakistan”?
  2. Which voices are present, absent or mediated by the institution?
  3. What chronology connects this entry to wider political or social change?
Subject index

Search terms from this dossier

Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “National debt of Pakistan” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.