Islamabad: After a short-lived appreciation against the US dollar, the Pakistani rupee went down again in the interbank market on Friday.
The State Bank of Pakistan said that at the end of the session, the local currency depreciated by 0.17% to close at Rs218.98 against the greenback.
Interbank closing #ExchangeRate for todayhttps://t.co/MFDU1Xf7pn pic.twitter.com/gGrWtxguqC
— SBP (@StateBank_Pak) September 2, 2022
During the week, the PKR gained Rs2.94 against the US dollar, posting an appreciation of 1.32%.
All you need to know about Pakistan, IMF deal
The USD started to bounce back despite the IMF disbursing a $1.16 billion loan to Pakistan under its Extended Fund Facility (EFF) programme.
On Wednesday, the State Bank announced that it received $1.16 billion (the equivalent of SDR 894 million) after the IMF Executive Board completed the combined seventh and eighth reviews under the Extended Fund Facility (EFF) for Pakistan.
” The central bank added, “This will help improve SBP’s foreign exchange reserves and facilitate the realization of other planned inflows from multilateral and bilateral sources,” the central bank added.
However, according to a weekly report published on the status of forex reserves by the State Bank of Pakistan, as of August 26, the SBP-held reserves declined by $112.8 million to hit $7.69 billion from $7.8 billion recorded on August 19.
Similarly, the net reserves held by the commercial banks also dropped by $5.3 million to reach $5.70 billion from $5.71 billion.
Cumulatively, the total foreign exchange reserves in the country witnessed a fall of $118 million to reach $13.4 billion from $13.5 billion during the period week ended on August 26.
However, analysts and the SBP believe that the foreign exchange reserves will improve in the next report which will include the addition of $1.16 billion from the IMF.
