Pakistan needs to repay China more than double the amount it owes the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in the next three years, Al Jazeera reported.

According to the details, the country owes $6.7 billion in commercial loans to China over the three years through June 2022, according to the IMF, which this year approved a new program to bail out Pakistan from an economic crisis.

On the other hand, the country needs to pay the multilateral lender $2.8 billion in the same period.

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“The borrowing picked up after the Belt and Road started,” said Hafiz Faizan Ahmed, head of research at Karachi-based Optimus Capital Management Pvt.

He added, “A bulk of the Chinese lending happened about two years ago when dollar reserves were dwindling, so the government kept borrowing and borrowing.”

Pakistan, one of the biggest beneficiaries of China’s Belt and Road Initiative, has been borrowing from Beijing to tide over a financial crisis.

Still, the money was not enough to completely bridge the financing gap and pushed the country to knock at the IMF’s doors.