Foreign Reserves Decrease By $591 Million This Month

The situation of foreign exchange reserves remained volatile with constant inflows and outflows of receipts in the closing month of 2018, ultimately settling in at $14 billion. In the week ending as of December 21, an outflow of $591 million was recorded from foreign exchange reserves. This was mainly due to debt-servicing or repayment of loans, and other official payments, according to State Bank of Pakistan (SBP). Before this week, the country received an impressive amount of $1 billion from Saudi Arabia as part of a financial assistance package. Despite the major receipts into the foreign exchange reserves, the central bank paid an amount of $212 million this week. Foreign exchange may witness handsome inflows in the next few months from friendly countries including KSA, UAE, and China, though the outflows are expected to remain consistent on the account of debt-servicing. Right now, foreign reserves held by the SBP stand at $ 7.457 billion whilst net foreign reserves held by commercial banks stand at $ 6.5 billion.