Downslide in liquid foreign exchange reserves continues unabated which, according to statistics released by the State Bank on October 27, stood reduced to 11,601.7 million dollars as on October 22.
Reserves had earlier slipped to below 12 billion dollars mark for the first time in the last 13 months on October 8. A week ago, these reserves stood at 11,736.1 billion dollars on October 15.
As pointed out in a previous report, the massive drawdown of reserves in the past 13 months or so has been ascribed to the ever widening trade gap endemic to a trade regime, which has been liberalised enormously under the World Trade Organisation (WTO) conditionally besides the recent unprecedented rise in international petroleum prices.
It appears that in the aftermath of October 8th earthquake, even augmented inflows of foreign funds, both as relief and enhanced expatriate remittances to help quake-torn relatives, fell far short of actual foreign exchange requirements.
The possibility that, with the passage of time, hundi or hawala transfers have picked up again so that relatively lesser amounts are now routed through formal banking channels.
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