The Special Convertible Rupee Accounts (SCRAs), which improved to a level of $8.4 million on August 3 from $6.3 million on August 1, had a further boost on August 4 and stood at $10.2 million as on that date.
This was revealed in the latest SBP update (August 5) on the subject. The details showed that arrival of fresh funds centred around USA and Kuwait, and to a lesser degree UK. The USA brought in funds worth $2.6 million though their net impact was restricted to $1.8 million when adjusted for simultaneous withdrawals of $0.8 million. Kuwait opened its account for the year with $0.5 million of new money raising the total number of active players to 14. UK ended up with a net inflow of $0.2 million (inflow of $0.235 million minus outflow of $0.045 million).
Overall, the net inflows originating from these countries were of the order of $2.5 million, but as Hong Kong withdrew another $0.7 million on August 4, the net impact was reduced to $1.8 million raising the cumulative net flow of all countries during the year so far to $10.2 million. On August 4, Hong Kong's total withdrawals during August amounted to roughly $2 million pushing its cumulative flows into the negative range (- $0.7 million) for the first time in the year. On the other hand, USA's new additions to its SCRAs amounted to $2.5 million during the first four days of August though its net balance was still negative $0.1 million. No other worth mentioning development occurred in the case of SCRAs on August 4.
The KSE-100 Index, in the meanwhile, jumped to 10,773 on August 4 compared with 10,668 on August 3, a rise of 105 points in a single day. Latest data on SBP General Index of Share Prices and aggregate market capitalisation were not available at the time of filing this report. The two stood at Rs 441.5 billion and Rs 2,916 billion, respectively on August 2.
(Report by research.dept@aaj.tv)