The country's total liquid foreign reserves were fell $303 million during the last week due to external debt servicing. According to State Bank of Pakistan's (SBP) weekly foreign exchange report issued on Thursday, total liquid foreign exchange reserves held by the country stood at $20.383 billion as on 15th December 2017 compared to $20.687 billion as on 8th December 2017.
The entire declined has been witnessed in SBP's reserves, while reserves held by banks slightly increased. During the week under review, SBP's reserves decreased by $334 million to $14.332 billion down from $14.666 billion. The decrease in reserves is due to payments on account of external debt servicing and other official outflows.
Similarly, reserves held by the banks increased by $30.8 million to $6.051 billion as against $6.020 billion a week earlier. It may be mentioned here that Pakistan has to pay billions of dollars on account of external debt servicing during this fiscal and the country's totalled external debt servicing has crossed two billion dollars mark during the first quarter of current fiscal year (FY18).
The depleting foreign exchange also compelled the federal government to borrow from the international market to build its reserves and accordingly Pakistan, in the first week of December, has raised some $2.5 billion through sale of Sukuk and Eurobond in the international market.
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