The country's total liquid foreign reserves fell $151 million during the last week owing to external debt payment. According to State Bank of Pakistan (SBP), the country's total foreign exchange reserves declined to $ 19.902 billion as on October 13, 2017 compared to $ 20.053 billion as on October 20, 2017. The decrease in reserves was on account of external debt servicing and other official payments.

As the SBP is responsible for the external debt payments, the entire declined was witnessed in the reserves held by the SBP. During the period under the review, the SBP's reserves declined $ 218 million to $ 13.942 billion end of last week down from $ 14.158 billion. However, reserves held by banks posted an increase of $ 65.3 million to $ 5.96 billion end of the last week.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2017