KARACHI: Pakistan’s foreign exchange reserves held by the central bank increased by $25 million to $17.215 billion during the week ending June 5, the State Bank of Pakistan said on Thursday.
The country’s total liquid foreign reserves rose by $35 million to $22.671 billion. The reserves of commercial banks also increased by $11 million to $5.456 billion.The FX reserves numbers come ahead of the Budget FY27 presentation in parliament on Friday and after the release of Pakistan’s economic survey for FY26.
The economic survey attributed a rise in the forex reserves to higher official disbursements and sustained remittance inflows. Furthermore, the central bank’s dollar purchases from the interbank market have helped strengthen Pakistan’s external buffers.
“The successful completion of the second review under the IMF Extended Fund Facility (EFF) and the first review under the Resilience and Sustainability Facility (RSF) allowed Pakistan access to about $1 billion under the EFF and about $200 million under the RSF,” the report said.
“Moreover, the third and second reviews of EFF and RSF facilities, respectively, allowed Pakistan access to a total of $1.32 billion, bringing the total disbursements under the two arrangements to $4.8 billion,” it added. “Combined with additional $3 billion deposits from Saudi Arabia and a three-year extension in terms of the initial $5 billion deposits, the foreign exchange reserve position is expected to strengthen further.”
The report said the continued rise in reserves also supported the local currency. The rupee has appreciated by 1.9 per cent against the dollar so far this fiscal year.On Thursday, the rupee closed at 278.35 per dollar in the interbank market. It had ended at 278.36 in the previous session.
“Both fiscal and monetary tightening, along with a strong external account on the back of strong remittances inflows and services exports, have made the PKR appreciate against the US dollar in this fiscal year so far,” said Awais Ashraf, director of research at AKD Securities Limited.
“In addition, Pakistan has made entry to the international market after four years, where the government was successful in raising $750 million through a Eurobond and became the first country to raise funding from the Chinese market through panda bonds,” Ashraf added.
