Govt Likely to Lift Curb on LCs as Forex Reserves Improve

The federal government is likely to lift curbs on the opening of Letters of Credit (LCs) as the country’s foreign exchange reserves improve. According to sources, the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) will gradually start to release the LCs payments as the government is expecting that foreign exchange reserves will increase in the coming days as loans start to materialize from friendly countries. According to the latest data issued by the central bank, the foreign currency reserves held by the SBP stand at $3.814. Overall liquid foreign currency reserves held by the country, including net reserves held by banks other than the SBP, stand at $9.267 billion. According to sources, the pending cases of LCs are close to $400 million and the central bank will start opening LCs in the coming days. Addressing a press conference earlier in the day, Finance Minister Ishaq Dar said that he expects the reserves held by the central bank to hit $10 billion by the end of June. He also announced that Pakistan is likely to receive around $1.3 billion from the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC). He said that Pakistan will receive the first tranche of $500 million in the next few working days with another tranche of $500 million expected in the next ten days after which the remaining amount of $300 million will also be transferred.