The country's liquid foreign exchange reserves slightly increased by $27.4 million dollar during last week, the State Bank said on Saturday. During the week under review the country's liquid foreign exchange reserves have registered an increase of 0.16 percent to $16.417 billion from $16.39 billion as on December 11, 2010.
Reserves held by State Bank on December 11 stood at $12.693 billion against the previous $12.653 billion, up by $40 million or 0.31 percent as compared to last week. However, the foreign exchange reserves of the commercial banks showed downward trend as the stood at $3.724 billion as compared to last week's $3.737 billion.
Banking sources said that over the last couple of months the funds-starved Pakistan's foreign exchange reserves have constantly been going downward for, what the State Bank spokesman believes, regular debt payments and cash withdrawals from the commercial banks.