KARACHI: The foreign exchange reserves of the country rose to two-year high with a further addition of $198 million during the week ended on May 2.
The State Bank reported on Thursday that the reserves rose to $12.044 billion, which included SBP’s $7.24bn and commercial banks’ $4.804bn.
At the end of fiscal year 2012, the total reserves of the country stood at $11.019bn.
The holdings of commercial banks dropped to $4.8bn during the last two years, as these stood at $5.011bn in fiscal year 2012.
However, SBP’s holdings rose to $7.24bn from $6.008bn in FY-12.
The main reason for higher SBP reserves was inflows from IMF, the World Bank and other bilateral sources.
“The increase in the central bank’s reserves is primarily attributed to inflow of $403m from multilateral and bilateral sources, of which $400m were received from the Asian Development Bank (ADB),” said the State Bank.
During the week ending on May 2, the SBP made a payment of $210m from its reserves on account of external debt-servicing and other official payments.