State Bank Of Pakistan (SBP) Foreign Exchange Reserves Surpass $16-Billion Mark
Earlier in the day, the SBP stated that its foreign exchange reserves fell 1.06% on a weekly basis.
The SBP’s (State Bank of Pakistan) foreign currency reserves have surged above $16 billion.
This was after the central bank received $2.5 billion as proceeds of Eurobonds were floated by the government.
Pakistan had borrowed $2.5 billion via Eurobonds on the 30th of March by offering very lucrative interest rates to lenders to build foreign exchange reserves.
Earlier in the day, the SBP stated that its foreign exchange reserves fell 1.06% on a weekly basis.
On the 2nd of April, the foreign currency reserves held by the SBP equaled at $13,527.2 million, down $146 million compared with $13,673 million in the previous week.
According to the SBP, the decline came on the back of external debt repayments.
Overall, the country’s liquid foreign currency reserves, including net reserves held by banks other than the SBP, stood at $20,679.4 million.
Net reserves held by banks equaled $7,152.2 million.
Pakistan obtained the first loan tranche of $991.4 million from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on the 9th of July, 2019, which helped sustain the reserves.
In late December 2019, the IMF released the second loan tranche of about $454 million.
The reserves also surged on account of $2.5 billion in inflows from China.
In 2020, the SBP fortunately made foreign debt repayment of over $1 billion on the maturity of the Sukuk bond.
In December 2019, the foreign exchange reserves exceeded the $10 billion mark owing to inflows from multilateral lenders, including around $1.3 billion from the Asian Development Bank (ADB).
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