Karachi: The foreign exchange reserves held by the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) witnessed a slight increase of $67 million, the central bank said in its weekly report on reserves.
According to the data, as of August 12, 2022, the SBP’s reserves increased by $67 million to reach $7.897 billion from $7.830 billion recorded on August 5.
Total liquid foreign #reserves held by the country stood at US$ 13.61 billion as of August 12, 2022. For details: https://t.co/WpSgomnd3v pic.twitter.com/KhyD6UyoqN
— SBP (@StateBank_Pak) August 19, 2022
During the period under review, however, the net reserves held by the commercial banks dropped by $14 million to reach $5.716 billion from $5.73 billion.
Cumulatively, the total foreign exchange reserves in the country recorded a slight increase of $52.2 million to reach $13.613 billion from $13.561 billion during the period week ended on August 5.
Read: Pakistan’s reserves fall below $8 billion; lowest since Oct’19
Remittance inflow drops 8.6% in July of FY23
The first month of the current fiscal year witnessed a decline of 8.6% in remittance inflows compared to the amount sent by overseas Pakistanis in June, the State Bank of Pakistan said on Tuesday.
According to the report, the total remittance inflows amounted to $2.5 billion in the July of FY23 compared to $2.761 billion in June of FY23 – a significant 8.6% decline on a month-on-month basis.
Similarly, on a year-on-year basis, the total remittance inflows recorded a decline of nearly 8%, as the remittances amounted to $2.73 billion during July last year.
The State Bank said that this drop was mainly due to “considerably fewer working days because of [the] Eid holidays”.
However, the daily average rate of remittances was 18% higher in July than in June, the SBP added.
Pakistan heavily depends on the influx of remittances to meet its foreign exchange needs because exports hardly cover the high level of imports.
Pakistan’s exports, imports down in July: PBS
The first month of the fiscal year 2023 saw a significant drop in Pakistan’s exports and imports, the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics reported on Wednesday.
According to the revised statistics on trade by the PBS, exports of the country dropped by 22.7pc month-on-month basis to $2.25 billion during July of the fiscal year 2023 from $2.9 billion in June.
Similarly, there was also a major fall in the total imports as they also dropped by 36.6pc to $4.9 billion compared to $7.8 billion recorded during June 2022.
Cumulatively, the imbalance between imports and exports dropped to 44.8pc on MoM and stood at $2.7 billion in July 2022 compared to $4.9 billion in June 2022.
