KARACHI: The country’s foreign exchange reserves have reached record high $21.32 billion by week ended May 13, 2016, the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) spokesman Abid Qamar has said.
The reserves increased $485 million from $20.834 billion last week ended May 6, 2016. The foreign exchange reserves of the central bank increased due to market activities, export receipts and inflows of remittances, the spokesman said.
The official reserves of the central bank increased by $485 million to $16.518 billion as compared with $16.033 billion in the previous week. The reserves of commercial banks were flat at $4.8 billion.
The central bank had accumulated a significant amount of liquid foreign exchange reserves over the past couple of years through both foreign exchange purchases from the interbank, as well as government mobilisation of external loans. Two months ago, foreign exchange reserves held by the SBP increased 3.5% on a weekly basis after it received $500 million from the IMF.
