KARACHI: The State Bank of Pakistan’s (SBP) foreign exchange reserves rose by $258 million during the last week. The sliding foreign exchange reserves moved upward after decline of some $4.6 billion during the last two months.
According to a weekly report issued by the State Bank on Thursday, SBP’s foreign exchange reserves rose to $4.601 billion as of Jan 13, 2023 up from $4.343 billion a as of Jan 6, 2023, showing an increase of $258 million.
Sources said the current increase in SBP’s reserves was supported by arrival of some foreign inflows. The current level of SBP’s foreign exchange reserves is sufficient for the import of almost one month.
The SBP’s reserves were on decline for the last few months due to massive scheduled external debt payments.
Previously, the SBP’s reserves were increased in the last week of October, when some $1.5 billion inflows from ADB arrived as disbursement of loan for the Government of Pakistan. With the arrival of these inflows SBP’s reserves rose to $8.9 billion in the first week of November 2022.
However, since then the country is paying external debt and cumulatively, foreign exchange reserves held by the SBP declined by $4.6 billion in the last two months due to external debt servicing.
According to SBP, during the week under review, net foreign reserves held by commercial banks stood at $5.842 billion, down by $2 million during the last week. The country’s total liquid foreign exchange reserves surged by $256 to $10.444 billion as of Jan 13, 2023 compared to $10.188 billion as of Jan 6, 2023. It may be mentioned here that the federal government is striving to get foreign inflows to build the depleting foreign exchange reserves of the country.
Governor SBP Jameel Ahmed, on Wednesday, has also assured the business community that foreign exchange position will be improved in coming months as a number of inflows are expected to arrive. “We are expecting a healthy inflow of dollars in the coming weeks from international donors, financial institutions and friendly countries. The situation would see an improvement with the arrival of these inflows,” he said while addressing the business community at FPCCI.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2023
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