The country’s foreign exchange reserves are constantly decreasing and contracted by $99 million or 0.5 per cent during the week ended on January 20. According to State Bank of Pakistan, during the week under review the country’s dollar reserves decreased to $16.802 billion from $16.901 billion of the previous week that ended on January 13. The review period saw State Bank’s dollar reserves standing at 12.553 billion against last week’s $12.688 billion.
Whereas the dollar holdings of the commercial banks witnessed an increase of $35 million and accumulated to $4.248 billion compared to $4.213 billion the banks possessed a week earlier. Analysts believe that current downward trend in dollar reserves was mainly based on the volume of import payments plus the retirement of external debts that, according to SBP, have aggregated to $62 billion.
