Pakistan's all-weather ally China has approved a loan of USD 700 million to the cash-strapped country, Finance Minister Ishaq Dar announced on Wednesday.

The announcement by Dar on the loan by the Board of China Development Bank came a day after Pakistan's National Assembly unanimously passed a money bill aimed at raising tax revenues to fulfil the demands set by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for seeking a USD 1.1 billion loan facility to avoid an economic meltdown.