New Delhi: Pakistan government’s social media gaffe refuses to end. After posting a draft message of the US-Iran ceasefire and cropping PM Narendra Modi out of the SCO summit group photo to centre–stage Shehbaz Sharif, its Ministry of Finance has yet again given the internet fodder for laughter. It started with a Eurobond that Pakistan wanted to flaunt.
The ministry on Thursday announced in an X post that the country had raised $3 billion through a dual-tranche Eurobond — the largest international bond transaction in Pakistan’s history. The government presented the sale as evidence that years of economic turmoil were giving way to stabilisation, reform, and renewed credibility in global markets.
There was only one problem. The ministry’s celebratory announcement on X appeared to carry, almost word for word, the sort of disclaimer that is supposed to prevent a document from being publicly distributed in precisely those markets the government was boasting about reaching. It was simply copy and paste.
Both X and Facebook had the same message. At the top of the post, sat the warning: “NOT FOR RELEASE, PUBLICATION OR DISTRIBUTION IN, OR INTO, THE UNITED STATES, AUSTRALIA, CANADA OR JAPAN.”
With social media users cheering on the move, even national dailies seemed to miss the memo. No one saw an issue.
The Express Tribune and Dawn ran a story on the bonds and chose to embed the same tweet.
The disclaimer is standard legal language associated with an international securities offering. It exists precisely because sovereign bonds distributed through global banks are subject to different securities laws and selling restrictions in different jurisdictions.
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Not a victory
Here’s the problem, however. Pakistan had been largely shut out of international bond markets for years. But a successful borrowing transaction is not an economic victory. A sovereign bond is, after all, debt.
Pakistan has not discovered $3 billion. It has borrowed $3 billion, and it will have to service and eventually repay that money. The coupon rates — 7.50 per cent and 7.90 per cent, according to the Finance Ministry — are hardly the borrowing costs of a country regarded by markets as risk-free. It has just officially ended its multi-year hiatus from global capital markets by executing its largest-ever international bond transaction.
Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb called the transaction the largest of its kind in Pakistan’s history and said it represented external validation of the country’s improved economic and credit position, The Express Tribune report said.
The issuance marked the first transaction under Pakistan’s renewed Global Medium-Term Note (GMTN) programme, coming after the successful launch of its inaugural Panda Bond and a series of upgrades to the country’s sovereign credit rating.
The GMTN programme is a financial platform that allows the government to issue diverse debt instruments, such as Eurobonds and dollar-settled rupee-linked bonds, to re-engage with international capital markets, according to Pakistan’s Press Information Department.
But the government did not merely publish an ordinary press release. It appears to have copied material from a formal offering document into a public communication channel without removing the legal boilerplate designed for a restricted audience.
The full disclaimer went further. It stated that the material was “for informational purposes only” and did not constitute an offer of securities for sale in the United States or elsewhere where such an offer would be unlawful. It also noted that the securities had not been registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933 and would not be publicly offered in the US, except under applicable exemptions.
The document contained similar restrictions for the United Kingdom, including references to the Financial Conduct Authority, professional investors, and eligible counterparties.
In other words, the fine print was not decorative. It was there to establish the legal boundaries around how the securities could be marketed and to whom, and yet it appeared on X and was even run by dailies. Pakistan forgot to use the edit button.
(Edited by Aamaan Alam Khan)