KARACHI: Pakistan on Tuesday night received around $500 million from International Monetary Fund (IMF) as a loan tranche under Extended Fund Facility (EFF) for budget support. The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) has confirmed on Twitter that it has received an IMF tranche amounting to $ 498.7 million (equivalent to SDR 350 million) under the Extended Fund Facility.
These inflows will help to build the country’s foreign exchange reserves and reduce the pressure on external account. The country’s total liquid foreign exchange reserves stood at $ 20.435 billion as on March19, 2021 and with arrival of these inflows the total foreign exchange reserves are likely to cross $21 billion mark.
Last year, the government and State Bank of Pakistan launched Roshan Digital Account to provide banking facilities to overseas Pakistanis to attract more foreign inflows. Roshan Pakistan Account have also received over $500 million deposits during the last five months. On July 3, 2019, IMF approved a 39-month extended arrangement under the EFF for Pakistan for an amount of SDR 4,268 million or about US$6 billion or 210 percent of quota to support the authorities’ economic reform programme.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2021
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