Country’s dollar reserves showed an uptick of 0.3 percent or $ 54 million during the week ending on March 9, said the central bank Thursday. During the week under review, Pakistan’s dollar holdings surged to $ 16.390 billion from $ 16.336 billion the country held last week up to March 2. The present increase is attributable to the increasing reserves of the commercial banks which, during the review week, counted their foreign exchange reserves at $ 4.527 billion, up by $ 89 million or two percent when compared with the previous week’s $ 4.438 billion. As for the State Bank, the regulator saw its reserves shrinking by $ 35 million to $ 11.862 billion against $ 11.897 billion the bank held last week. The country’s foreign exchange reserves hit the record $ 18.31 billion mark in July 2011 and then started almost constantly moving northward due to, what the official and unofficial observers believe, heavy repayments on account of exports and external loans that have accumulated to $ 62 billion. The State Bank repaid at least $ 399 million to the International Monetary Fund at the end of February with economic managers, reportedly, brushing aside the impression that the scheduled repayment of $ 1.1 billion to the Fund by June 2012 would have any significant impact on the economy. Theses repayments are already budgeted, said they.
