SBP’s Foreign Reserves Surge to Highest Level in 4 Years

Pakistan received inflows amounting to $2.5 billion on Thursday evening as proceeds of recently launched Eurobonds. The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) has confirmed on its Twitter account that SBP has received the government’s proceeds of $2.5 billion against Eurobond issuance in its account. As a result, the State Bank of Pakistan’s (SBP) foreign exchange reserves surged to over $16 billion, which is the highest level since July 2017, the SBP said.   Pakistan entered the international capital market for the sale of Eurobonds after a gap of over three years. A multi-tranche transaction of 5-, 10- and 30-year Eurobonds was conducted to build up the foreign exchange reserves. Pakistan has received approximately $3 billion in overall foreign inflows during the past two weeks. Out of these, nearly $2.5 billion from Eurobond arrived on Thursday night. In the last week of March, Pakistan received around $500 million from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) as a loan tranche under Extended Fund Facility (EFF) for budget support. As of April 2, 2021, SBP’s total liquid foreign exchange reserves were $20.679 billion. With the addition of Eurobond proceeds, these foreign exchange reserves are likely to cross the $23 billion mark.