KARACHI: The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) on Tuesday night received around $498.7m from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) as a loan tranche under Extended Fund Facility (EFF) for budget support.
The SBP confirmed on Twitter last night and said, “SBP has received IMF tranche of US$ 498.7 million (equivalent to SDR 350 million) under the Extended Fund Facility.”
After receiving this payment, the dollar in the interbank market opened at Rs151.50 but the market sources claimed that currently the dollar is being traded at Rs152.20. Pak-rupee had appreciated around Rs2.80 in the last two days, the analysts claimed.
These inflows will support building the country’s foreign exchange reserves and reduce the pressure on the external account.
The country’s total liquid foreign exchange reserves stood at $20.435bn as of March 19, 2021 and with the arrival of these inflows the total foreign exchange reserves are likely to cross $21bn mark.
Last year, the government and SBP launched Roshan Digital Account (RDA) to provide banking facilities to overseas Pakistanis to attract more foreign inflows. RDA has also received over $750m deposits during the last five-six months.
On July 3, 2019, IMF approved a 39-month extended arrangement under the EFF for Pakistan for an amount of SDR 4,268m or about $6bn or 210 per cent of quota to support the authorities’ economic reform programme.
