KARACHI: Pakistan’s foreign exchange reserves slightly rose by $4 million to $13.250 billion during the week ended October 14, the central bank r
KARACHI: Pakistan’s foreign exchange reserves slightly rose by $4 million to $13.250 billion during the week ended October 14, the central bank reported on Thursday.
However, the foreign reserves held by the State Bank of Pakistan remained flat standing at $7.597 billion. That compared with $7.596 billion in the previous week.
“During the week ended on 14-Oct-2022, SBP’s reserves recorded no major change, closing at US$ 7,597.2 million,” the central bank said in a statement.
The SBP’s reserves can cover one month’s worth of imports.
Reserves of commercial banks increased by $4 million to $5.654 billion.
The central bank reserves are hovering around the lowest level in three years though the SBP received the $1.2-billion tranche from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in September.
Authorities, meanwhile, have imposed curbs and are deferring import payments to protect the declining reserves. They are also desperately seeking dollar inflows to meet balance-of-payments needs.
The country’s forex reserves numbers come after Pakistan saw a 53 percent month-on-month decline in the current account deficit in September helped by falling imports.
Pakistan’s current account deficit narrowed to $316 million in September from $676 million a month ago. Total imports dropped 18 percent to $4.82 billion in September aided by a reduction in energy imports.
A tight monetary policy, administrative barriers, and a ban on non-essential imports (automobiles, mobile phones, and home appliances) helped reduce the import bill.
The current account gap shrank 37 percent to $2.2 billion in the first quarter of this fiscal year.
“Pakistan’s monthly current account deficit is at 17 month low. Good achievement. But the biggest challenge now is to reduce the burden of USD debt repayment. This is challenging due to uncertainty on debt rollover amid bad global financial markets,” said Mohammed Sohail, the CEO at Topline Securities on his official Twitter handle.
According to Finance Minister Ishaq Dar, Pakistan requires about $32 to $34 billion to fulfill its liabilities and financial needs for 2022-2023, including about $22 billion in multilateral debt and liabilities of about $12 billion.
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