Pakistan’s Foreign Exchange Reserves rise to $20.4 billion

Pakistan’s Forex reserves (foreign exchange reserves) have increased by $161 million during the first week of December 2020. The rise was a 0.78 percent increase, informed the Central Bank on Thursday.

The State Bank of Pakistan received an amount of $307 million from the Asian Development Bank, according to their statement. They have gotten a total of $359 million from multilateral and bilateral sources.

Currently, the total liquid foreign exchange reserves held by Pakistan amounts to $20.402 billion, a $161 million increase from last week.

The State Bank’s reserves have increased by $188 million to stand at $13.298 billion today. This is after deducting debt repayments and any other deductions.

The Foreign Exchange reserves held by the commercial banks has, however, fallen from $7.130 billion to $7.103 billion, a $27 million decrease from last week.

Over the past year, Prime Minister Imran Khan has been taking rapid steps to stimulate growth in Pakistan’s economy. PM Khan has established a National Export Development Board under the Strategic Trade Policy Framework (STPF) 2020-25. The Board will be headed by the Prime Minister himself and will include all stakeholders of the exports industry.

The country’s exports have also seen significant increases towards the end of 2020. Pakistan’s IT industry, specifically, has increased their exports by 44 percent in the first quarter of FY2020-21.

With Pakistan observing increases in their reserves and their exports whilst also establishing new Development Boards and various other programmes to stimulate the economy, the country seems to be going towards economic growth and financial stability in the near future.