KARACHI: The Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) rallied on Tuesday after positive sentiments as the nation received$2 billion deposit from Saudi Arabia.
The benchmark KSE-100 index increased by over 500 points in early trading and crossed the 45,000 points barrier. At around 12:24pm, the index gained 555.18 points or 1.24% to jump to 45,140.30 points, up from the previous close of 44,585.12 points.
Finance Minister Ishaq Dar said that Pakistan has received $2 billion deposit from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA). During a press conference, Dar confirmed that the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) has received the $2 billion deposit from Saudi Arabia.
“On Friday, our reserves had closed in at less than $10 billion, standing at roughly $9.67 billion so you can now imagine them close to $11.67 billion,” he said. “You can expect this $2 billion to reflect starting this Friday in the State Bank reserves,” the minister added.
The finance minister also said that he expected “further positive developments” in the coming few days that would help to stabilize the country’s economy.
The inflows comes after Pakistan reached a standby-agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) deal on June 30. Pakistan is set to receive $3 billion over a period of nine months, pending approval by the IMF’s board, which is scheduled to convene on July 12.
On the other hand, the Fitch Ratings has upgraded Pakistan’s Long-Term Foreign-Currency Issuer Default Rating (IDR) to ‘CCC’ from ‘CCC, indicating a positive development towards the betterment of the country’s economy
The rating agency has identified key indicators that contributed to the positive development rating for the country which include improvement in easing external financing risks.
The upgrade in ratings reflects Pakistan’s improved external liquidity and funding conditions following its Staff-Level Agreement (SLA) with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on a nine-month Stand-by Arrangement (SBA) in June.
