KARACHI: Pakistan’s foreign exchange reserves are consistently depleting due to reimbursement of foreign debts. Reserves held by the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) have declined down to $3 billion.
According to the weekly report issued by SBP, the total liquid reserves declined by $177.8 million to $8.06 billion.
During the mentioned period, reserves held by the State Bank weakened by $83.5 million to $2.96 billion down from $3.046 billion a week earlier. Reserves held by banks also witnessed a downward trend falling by $94.3 billion to $5.097 billion during last week.
Bankers have said that rising foreign debt payment is the major reason of this massive decline in reserves. Presently the country is in process of repayments under the Stand-By Arrangement programme availed from the International Monetary Fund in Nov 2008, when the country was facing a default-like situation.
