KARACHI – Pakistan’s foreign exchange reserves have further fallen to $3.7billion, its lowest levels since February 2014, as the country’s economiccrisis worsen in recent weeks.
The reserves held by the central bank have been persistently shrinkingsince the beginning of the current fiscal year as data issued by the StateBank of Pakistan revealed that it dropped a massive $923 million to $3.7billion.
With the new data update, the liquid foreign reserves held by the dollarstarved country stood at $9.5 billion and foreign reserves held bycommercial banks stood at $5.8 billion, painting a gloomy picture of theeconomy as the country’s top leader approaching foreign leaders and lendersamid the panic.
The foreign exchange reserves fell to lowest in last decade as the countrygrapples with a severe economic crunch, striving to revive the IMF bailoutprogramme.
Pakistan’s forex reserves stood at nearly $18 billion last year butcontinued to shrink as talks on the IMF ninth review remained stalled inrecent months.
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Lately, the US-based lender said that its mission will visit Islamabad atthe end of January to continue discussions under the ninth Extended FundFacility (EFF) review.
The country of over 220 million is battling the worst economic crisis inrecent times and is in dire need of foreign aid to cut its current accountdeficit besides having enough reserves to pay the debt.
Amid the dilapidating reserves, and unprecedented inflation, global ratingagencies cut the long-term sovereign credit rating of the South Asiannation by one notch to ‘CCC+’ from ‘B’ showing a weakening of the country’sexternal, fiscal and economic metrics.
