In the year Reserves decreased by $245 million during the week ended December 30 due to foreign payments.
Pakistan 2022 closed its foreign exchange reserves at $11.422 billion, up from $11.336 billion in 2019, the first year in power of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI).
Meanwhile, the situation of foreign exchange reserves. Between the State Bank of Pakistan and commercial banks, it worsened after a $245 million cut over the weekend of December 30.
Data shared by the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) on the country’s foreign exchange reserves on Thursday showed that reserves declined by $245 million for the week ended December 30, 2022, mainly due to repayments from the external debt.
This means that Pakistan’s total reserves for the week ending December 30, 2022 fell to $11.422 billion from $11.707 billion the previous week (ending December 23).
Central bank reserves fell to $5.576 billion.
These include the lowest level of state bank reserves since March 2014, when the fund fell to $5.366 billion.
Total liquid foreign #reserves held by the country stood at US$ 11.42 billion as of December 30, 2022.
— SBP (@StateBank_Pak) January 5, 2023
For details https://t.co/WpSgomnKT3 pic.twitter.com/1uJn3rmSLG
Net foreign exchange reserves held by commercial banks were $5.846 billion, down slightly by $39.3 million from $5.885 billion last week.
The loss.
But the problem is that central bank reserves have fallen below the foreign currency holdings of commercial banks.
Last week’s loss was around $269.5 million.
This is the state bank’s worst foreign exchange reserve since July 31, 2010.
In November 2013, public bank reserves fell to $3.048 billion, and central bank reserves fell dangerously below the level of commercial banks, from $2.408 billion in commercial bank reserves. The difference narrowed to just $640 million.
But it has not reached the point where the state bank has fewer reserves than commercial banks.