In the first week of October this year, the country's total reserves touched $20 billion mark; however the trend could not sustain due to foreign debt payments, however after two months, again the total liquid forex reserves have crossed $20 billion level. The detailed analysis revealed that during the period under review, forex reserves held by the SBP witnessed an upward trend, while banks' forex reserves declined slightly.
The SBP's liquid forex reserves increased by $654 million to reach an all-time high level of $15.441 billion at the end of last week compared to $14.787 billion in the previous week. The SBP, during the last week, received $918 million from multilateral, bilateral and other official sources. This includes $500 million from the World Bank and $400 million from the Asian Development Bank. During the period under review, the SBP made payments of $270 million on account of external debt servicing. Similarly, reserves held by banks fell by $22.5 million to $5.009 billion as on December 4, 2015 compared to $5.032 billion on November 27, 2015.