China's central bank said on Wednesday that the People's Bank of China (PBOC) and the State Bank of Pakistan recently had renewed their bilateral currency swap agreement with a swap size of 30 billion yuan/1,180 billion Pakistani rupees.
The agreement is valid for three years and can be further extended upon mutual consent.
The PBOC said renewing the agreement will help strengthen financial cooperation and expand the use of local currencies between the two countries while also promoting bilateral trade and facilitating investment.
Central banks of China, Pakistan renew bilateral currency swap agreement
The ploy by the U.S. to cite "forced labor" in expanding tariffs is nothing more than a pretext to restrict market access and reshape the global economic order, said Mohammad Faisal, Executive Director of Indonesia's Center of Reform on Economics (CORE).
The U.S. recently broadened its tariff measures under a law banning imports made with forced labor, defined as work performed under coercion or threat without workers' consent.
While Washington presents the move as a human‑rights safeguard, critics have slammed it as a protectionist tool that risks squeezing investment and stalling industrialization in developing nations.
"This is I think is just the cover. So basically it is a way of the U.S. to control which countries that actually can get access to the market. Which means also indirectly actually to make a regulation and rules for the economic order," he said.
Faisal stressed that the United States' escalating trade restrictions are also creating new uncertainties for Indonesia's own development strategy. If external policies continue to tighten, Indonesia's space for attracting investment and developing its manufacturing sector will be squeezed.
"In my view, apart from textiles, many other sectors including the high tech, including the critical minerals, the downstreaming policy, which is the Indonesian priority policy, right now is in danger because of this," he said.
Faisal further noted that the United States' reinforced trade barriers are accelerating bloc‑based fragmentation in global trade and investment, posing fresh challenges to the stability of global industrial and supply chains.
Indonesia economist slams US "forced labor" tariff ploy as protectionist
