ISLAMABAD: After nine months hiatus, the State Bank of Pakistan held reserves swelled past the 8 billion dollars mark after Islamabad received finances from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Saudi Arabia, and United Arab Emirates (UAE).
The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) said in a statement that the total liquid foreign reserves held by Pakistan stood at 14.06 billion dollars for the week that ended on 14 July.
Out of the amount the central bank reserves are at 8.7 billion dollars and the reserves held by commercial banks are at 5.3 billion dollars.
Inflows increase reserves
The statement said that “during the week ended on July 14, 2023, the central bank received 2 billion dollars from Saudi Arabia, 1.2 billion dollars from IMF, and 1 billion dollars from the UAE. Consequently, the central bank reserves rose by 4.203 billion dollars to 8.727 billion dollars.
Pakistan’s 350 billion dollars economy was in turmoil since November last year when a 1.1 billion dollars IMF tranche, part of a 6.5 billion dollars Extended Fund Facility agreed upon in 2019, was held by the the international lending agency.
The government was in negotiations since end-January to resume the programme but in vain, and the programme ended without completion. Since then there had been persistent speculations of the country defaulting.
However, the tide turned on 30 June, the last day of the agreement, when Pakistan and IMF signed a long-awaited staff-level deal on a 3 billion dollars stand-by arrangement.
Following the deal, inflows started to come from Saudi Arabia on 11 July and the UAE on 18 July.
