The reserves held by State Bank of Pakistan's (SBP) increased by $1.518 billion during the last week due to arrival of inflows from UAE and Saudi Arabia for balance of payment support. During the week ending January 25, 2019, SBP has received inflows of $1.0 billion each from Saudi Arabia and UAE as placement of funds to build the depleting foreign exchange reserves. After taking into account outflows relating to external debt and other official payments, SBP reserves increased by $1.518 billion to $8.154 billion end of the last week.

The country's total liquid foreign reserves stood at $14.803 billion as on January 25, 2019 compared to $13.257 billion as on January 18, 2019, showing an increase of $1.546 billion. During the last week, reserves held by banks surged to $6.648 billion, up by $27 million.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2019