SBP chief sees Pakistan's current account in surplus for FY26

State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) Governor Jameel Ahmad projected on Wednesday the current account would remain balanced or in surplus for the second consecutive fiscal year (FY26) ended June 30, 2026, paving the way for an increase in economic activities and growth in the current fiscal year 2026-27 (FY27).

The current account numbers for June 2026 and the full fiscal year 2025-26 (FY26) are yet to be released by the central bank.

“I am quite confident that June numbers will also be good. So, overall, we are expecting the current account balanced or slightly in surplus for FY26,” the central bank chief said while speaking at the concluding session of the two-day Pakistan Banking Summit 2026.

For the first 11 months (Jul-May) of FY26, the balance of the current account stood in surplus at $255 million, he said, adding the balance was also in surplus in the prior fiscal year (FY25), which “was close to 0.5% of GDP”.

Last week, the central bank estimated the balance for FY26 slightly in deficit or slightly in surplus. The original projection for the number issued at the start of the year was between zero to 1% of GDP for the full year.

Ahmad said gross domestic product (GDP) was estimated to grow to 4% in FY26, notably higher than the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) provisional number at 3.7% for the year.

“We are expecting the growth momentum to pick up in fiscal year 2027,” he said. “The GDP would have been higher than 4% if the Middle Eastern geopolitical crisis had not erupted in late February 2026.”

SBP governor said the foreign exchange reserves (held by SBP) would have grown to $23 billion had the central bank not settled forward liabilities worth close to $4.8 billion over the past three years.

“The forward liabilities reduced to $902 million as on yesterday (Tuesday, Jul 7) from $5.8 billion three years ago. The settled forward liabilities were in addition to foreign debt repayments,” he said.

Ahmad said the SBP reserves would hit a new all-time high at $20.2 billion by end of December 2026, adding the FX reserves had grown six times to $18.4 billion by end of FY26 from below $3 billion in February 2023.

FX at current position has improved import cover for close to three months that is the international benchmark. The reserves had declined to only two-week import cover, below $3 billion, in February 2023.

The improvement in economic numbers has created an enabling environment for businesses to grow and for banks to extend the required financing to the private sector.

SBP governor directed banks to provide the required financing to priority areas, including agriculture and small and medium enterprises (SME).

The central bank has targeted to increase SME financing to Rs1.5 trillion.