After 4 weeks, some life breathed into Pakistan’s forex reserves

After four weeks of continuous decrease, Pakistan’s forex reserves got a much needed boost, as it swelled by a cumulative $162.6 million.

According to data released by the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) on Thursday, Pakistan’s foreign currency reserves for the week ending February 10, stood at $8.702 billion.

This was up $162.6 million from last week’s reserves of $8.54 billion. It was still the lowest since March 2014 when national reserves fell to $7.638 billion.

The biggest support to the reserves came from the central bank where reserves swelled by $276.2 million, rising from a nine year low of $2.917 billion in the week ending February 3, 2023, to $3.192 billion for the week ending February 10.

For reserves held with commercial banks, there was a dip.

From $5.655 billion held at the end of first week of February, the reserves lost around $113.6 million during the week to shrink to $5.509 billion for the week ending February 10.