KARACHI: As International Monetary Fund (IMF) $1.1 billion tranche doesn’t seem to be coming soon, Pakistan’s money problems getting from worse to worst as State Bank of Pakistan’s foreign currency reserves are down to 32-month low.
According to the latest date released by the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) on Friday, Pakistan’s foreign exchange reserves of the US dollar decreased by $754 million to the level of $14.414 billion.
Data for the week ending on July 22, the SBP said it held just $8.57 billion of all foreign currency.
Total liquid foreign #reserves held by the country stood at US$ 14.41 billion as of July 22, 2022. For details: https://t.co/WpSgomnd3v pic.twitter.com/08m1g8yUeM
— SBP (@StateBank_Pak) July 29, 2022
The central bank said that the primary reason for the dip was that Pakistan had to pay off its external debts and payments for imports and other payments.
This is the lowest reserves held by the SBP since October 2019 when reserves with the central bank had dipped to $8.24 billion. At the time, lower holdings by commercial banks meant that Pakistan’s total reserves stood at just $11.156 billion.
Of the remaining currency reserves, around $5.84 billion is held by private, and commercial banks.
