The foreign exchange reserves held by the central bank increased 4.73% on a weekly basis, according to data released by the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) on Thursday.
On July 30, the foreign currency reserves held by the SBP were recorded at $12,542.2 million, up $567 million compared with $11,975.6 million in the previous week.
According to the central bank, the reserves increased due to inflows from multilateral and bilateral agencies including $505.5 million from the World Bank. Overall, liquid foreign currency reserves held by the country, including net reserves held by banks other than the SBP, stood at $19,562.9 million. Net reserves held by banks amounted to $7,020.7 million.
Pakistan received the first loan tranche of $991.4 million from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on July 9 last year, which helped bolster the reserves. In late December, the IMF released the second loan tranche of around $454 million.
Previously, the reserves jumped on account of $2.5 billion in inflows from China.
A few months ago, the SBP successfully made foreign debt repayment of over $1 billion on the maturity of Sukuk.
In December 2019, the foreign exchange reserves surpassed the $10-billion mark owing to inflows from multilateral lenders including $1.3 billion from the Asian Development Bank.
Published in The Express Tribune, August 7th, 2020.
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