The week in review saw the country’s dollar reserves contracting by 1.0 percent or $ 180 million up to April 20. According to central bank, the country’s holdings of the greenback shrank to $ 16.422 billion against 16.602 billion of last week that ended on April 13. Of the total reserves, the State Bank held $ 11.916 billion, down by 55 million when compared with $ 11.971 billion of last week.
The commercial banks too counted their dollar reserves lower at $ 4.505 billion against $ 4.631 billion of the preceding week, registering a slump of $126 million. The SBP spokesperson attributes such up and downs in the banks’ reserves mostly to routine deposit and withdrawal of cash by the account holders.