Week-on-week: Foreign currency reserves fall 1.4%

Central bank reserves registered decrease of $159 million, now stand at $11,067m.

KARACHI: Foreign exchange reserves held by the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) decreased 1.4% on a weekly basis on March 20, according to data released by the central bank on Thursday.

SBP’s liquid foreign exchange reserves decreased by $159 million to $11,067 million compared to $11,226 million in the previous week. During the week, the SBP made payments of $268 million on account of external debt and other official payments, which include $51 million payment to the IMF. During the same period, the SBP received $114 million from multilateral, bilateral and other sources.

Total liquid foreign reserves held by the country, including net reserves held by banks other than the SBP, stood at $16,131.9 million while net foreign reserves held by banks amounted to $5,064.6 million.

Reserves are likely to increase soon because of the $550 million tranche approval from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) expected before the end of the month. Reserves went up significantly last month when the SBP received $717 million on account of the Coalition Support Fund (CSF).

Pakistan’s foreign exchange reserves witnessed a rapid rise in the last month of 2014 when the SBP received $1,221 million from multilateral, bilateral and other sources.

This was preceded by another 10.6% weekly rise in SBP’s liquid foreign reserves in the same month when Pakistan received $1 billion against the issuance of Sukuk bonds.

trade.Published in The Express Tribune, March  27^th,  2015.

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