SBP reserves fall $12m to $13.4b

Central bank cites no reason for decrease

KARACHI:

The foreign exchange reserves held by the central bank fell 0.09% on a weekly basis, according to data released by the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) on Thursday.

On January 8, the foreign currency reserves held by the SBP were recorded at $13,400 million, down $12 million compared with $13,412.3 million in the previous week.

The central bank gave no reason for the decrease in reserves.

Overall, liquid foreign currency reserves held by the country, including net reserves held by banks other than the SBP, stood at $20,519 million.

Net reserves held by banks amounted to $7,119 million. Pakistan received the first loan tranche of $991.4 million from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on July 9, 2019, which helped bolster the reserves.

In late December 2019, the IMF released the second loan tranche of around $454 million.

The reserves had also jumped on account of $2.5 billion in inflows from China.

In 2020, 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).