Foreign debt inflows plunge 38pc in July-Jan

Amid a 66 per cent plunge in foreign inflows in the first half of FY25, the Economic Affairs Division (EAD) blocked the release of monthly data on external assistance for more than a month until a partial improvement to 38pc decline in seven months. The EAD released two separate sets of debt data on Tuesday. In the first six months of the current year, foreign debt inflows amounted to $3.6bn, almost 66pc lower than $5.968bn in the same period last year. In an unprecedented step, the data was not released last month, although it is always uploaded on the website in the third week of the following month. The second data set put total inflows at $4.585bn in July-January, which was also 38pc lower than the $6.31bn in the same period last fiscal year. The lower inflows this year were apparently because of delays in securing a bailout from the International Monetary