LAHORE – Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has placed $2 billion with the State Bank of Pakistan, Finance Minister Ishaq Dar confirmed on Tuesday.
He took on to Twitter to give the news of a much-needed boost to the country’s foreign exchange reserves.
“State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) has received a deposit of $2 billion from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. This inflow has increased the forex reserves held by SBP and will accordingly be reflected in the forex reserves for the week ending 14 July 2023,” the minister stated in a tweet.
On behalf of the civil and military leadership and the public at large, he also extended heartfelt thanks to the leadership of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for their great gesture and support by placing the said deposit of $2 billion with the country’s central bank.
On behalf of
PM @CMShehbaz,
COAS @_GenAsimMunir, myself @MIshaqDar50 and the People of Pakistan,
I extend our heartfelt thanks to the leadership of Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for their great gesture and support by placing said deposit of $2 billion with State Bank of Pakistan!— Ishaq Dar (@MIshaqDar50) July 11, 2023
“On behalf of PM @CMShehbaz, COAS @_GenAsimMunir, myself @MIshaqDar50 and the People of Pakistan, I extend our heartfelt thanks to the leadership of Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for their great gesture and support by placing said deposit of $2 billion with State Bank of Pakistan!”, he stated in his second tweet.
After receiving deposit from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the SBP reserved will cross $6 billion mark after a long time.
Drastically low foreign exchange reserves were posing threat of default which was initially avoided by a staff level agreement with the IMF for a bailout package. Global lending agency will evaluate the staff level agreement with Pakistan at its Executive Board meeting scheduled to held on July 12.
The recent inflow from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has taken the SBP and country’s reserves to a comparatively comfortable level.
SBP’s foreign exchange reserves reached $4,462.7 million after increasing by $393 million during the week ended on June 30, 2023.
The net foreign reserves held by commercial banks stood at $5,282.8 million after increasing by $11 million.
As such, the total liquid foreign reserves held by Pakistan reached $9,745.5 million after increasing by $404 million.
During the week ended on June 30, 2023, SBP reserves increased by US$ 393 million to US$ 4,462.7 million mainly due to receipt of official GoP inflows.
