Pakistan lent Rs120 million to West Germany in 1963
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LAHORE: Currently on a tour to Germany, Premier Nawaz Sharif should be walking in Berlin with his head high because 51 years ago in 1963, the Ayub Khan-led government dished out Rs120 million loan to this largest European economy of today for a period of 20 years, some decades-old Ministry of Finance documents reveal.
The situation is totally opposite in 2014, and the total German funding volume for Pakistan or its net trade investment has exceeded 2.3 billion Euros.The economical and financial development cooperation between Pakistan and Germany goes back to 1961. Germany is Pakistan’s fourth largest trade partner currently. During July this year, the German government announced 1 million Euros in immediate assistance to support the relief activities of the World Food Programme (WFP) in the north-west of Pakistan.
Not long ago, some 4,900 classrooms were built or renovated with German cooperation in Khyber Pakhtoonkhwa (KP).Moreover, some 3,50,000 elementary and secondary school teachers in Pakistan have attended the German-funded programmes across the country.
On the health front, just to give one more example, a German support of 42 million Euros had helped Pakistan’s Family Planning Prgrammes during the 1990s. A February 27, 2013, a report appearing in prestigious British daily newspaper “The Guardian” reveals that Pakistan had been lending money to Germany even before 1953!
This is what “The Guardian” had stated: “By 1953, Germany also had debts based on reconstruction loans made immediately after the end of the Second World War. Germany’s creditors included Greece and Spain, Pakistan and Egypt, as well as the US, UK and France.”
The British newspaper had maintained in its afore-cited report that 60 years ago, Greece and Spain had helped post-war Germany recover and half of the country’s war debts were cancelled to build its economy. An agreement to write off the German debts was inked in London.
The credible British media outlet notes: “Following the London deal, West Germany experienced an “economic miracle”, with the debt problem resolved and years of economic growth. The medicine doled out to heavily indebted countries over the last 30 years could not be more different.” The Guardian further states: “Germany emerged from the second world war still owing debt that originated with the First World War.”
Countries such as Greece had willingly taken part in a deal to help create a stable and prosperous Western Europe, despite the war crimes that German occupiers had inflicted just a few years before. In 2014, the German economy is the fourth largest in the world with a nominal GDP of $3.747 trillion, exports of over $1.516 trillion, Foreign Direct Investment stock of $1.335 trillion and Foreign Exchange reserves of $233.813 billion. It is, however, shocking to note that according to a 2013 BBC World Service Poll, only 5 per cent of Germans had viewed Pakistan’s influence positively, with an overwhelming 82 per cent had expressed a negative view.
