Foreign exchange: SBP reserves fall $342m to $12.36b

Decrease comes due to govt’s external debt repayments, other official payments

KARACHI:

The foreign exchange reserves held by the central bank declined 2.69% on a weekly basis, according to data released by the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) on Thursday.

On September 25, the foreign currency reserves held by the SBP were recorded at $12,359.7 million, down $342 million compared with $12,701.6 million in the previous week.

According to the central bank, the fall came on the back of government’s external debt payments that amounted to $311 million, and other official payments.

Overall, liquid foreign currency reserves held by the country, including net reserves held by banks other than the SBP, stood at $19,534.8 million. Net reserves held by banks amounted to $7,175.1 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 (ADB).