SBP reserves fall by $228m

After witnessing a consistent increase for several weeks, the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) foreign exchange reserves noted an outflow of $228 million to $11.85 billion during the week ended on Dec 20. On Thursday, the central bank announced that the reserves fell due to external debt payments. The country is required to repay $26.1bn during the current fiscal year. The government has partially paid some amount, and a significant debt has been rolled over for another year. However, about $14bn is still required to meet the external repayment obligations for FY25. Since the official foreign inflows are limited, the SBP has been buying dollars from the banking market.