Week-on-week: Forex reserves down 1.8%

KARACHI:

Foreign exchange reserves held by the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) decreased 1.8% on a weekly basis on May 22, according to data released by the central bank on Thursday. SBP’s liquid foreign exchange reserves fell $228 million to $12,284 million as opposed to $12,512 million in the previous week.

The SBP made payment of $136 million to the IMF as the last instalment under the Standby Agreement during the week under consideration.

Total liquid foreign reserves held by the country, including net reserves held by banks other than the SBP, stood at $17,494.2 million while net reserves held by banks amounted to $5,209.8 million. Last month, foreign exchange reserves held by the SBP increased 5.1% because of the receipt of HBL’s privatisation proceeds.

Reserves went up by almost 4% in April following the receipt of $538 million from multilateral, bilateral and other sources, including $498 million from the IMF. They increased significantly in February when the SBP got $717 million on account of the Coalition Support Fund.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 29^th, 2015.

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