Pakistan's foreign reserves continue to decline due to loan repayment

In its weekly bulletin, the SBP said its reserves decreased by $74 million due to external debt repayment

Amid political instability and economic crisis, the State Bank of Pakistan's (SBP) foreign reserves continue to decline due to loan repayment, reported Geo News.

The foreign exchange reserves continued their downward trend and fell to USD 4.38 billion in the week ending May 5, central bank data showed on Thursday.

Pakistan's foreign reserves have declined sharply in recent months to a critically low level. The current reserves are not sufficient for even a month's imports -- a position that has remained the same as the country faces an acute balance of payments crisis, reported Geo News.

In its weekly bulletin, the SBP said its reserves decreased by USD 74 million due to external debt repayment.

 

It further said that net reserves held by commercial banks stood at USD 5.61 billion, around USD 1.23 billion less than the SBP's reserves, taking the country's total liquid foreign reserves to USD 9.99 billion, reported Geo News.

Earlier this week, Moody's Investor Service warned that the country could default without an International Monetary Fund (IMF) programme as its foreign exchange reserves were "very weak".

The government has been in talks with the Washington-based lender since November for the release of a USD 1.1 billion tranche. However, a staff-level agreement (SLA) is yet to be signed despite the government's claim that it has fulfilled all IMF conditions.

The revival of the stalled loan programme would not only release the tranche which is desperately needed to avert a default, but also unlock funding from other multilateral institutions, reported Geo News.

Meanwhile, the government has imposed import curbs in a bid to reduce dollar outflows, which resulted in the country posting a current account surplus of USD 654 million in March -- the highest since February 2015.

However, several companies across different sectors have partially or completely shut down operations in recent months citing inventory shortages and difficulties in opening letters of credit (LCs) due to the import curbs, reported Geo News.

The rupee has fallen to a record low of Rs 298.93 against the US dollar as reserves remain low and the prevailing political turmoil leads to fears of further delay in the IMF deal.