Forex reserves increase by $343 million

KARACHI: The country's liquid foreign exchange reserves rose by over $343 million during last week.

The State Bank of Pakistan's statistics show that overall foreign exchange reserves registered an increase of $343 millions during the week that ended on January 03, 2009.

With the current upsurge, the country's foreign exchange reserves have mounted to $10.004 billion on 03 January 2009 as compared to $9.661 billion a week earlier. The major increase has been witnessed in the reserves held by the central bank as it showed an increase of $232 million during last week. The central bank reserves reached $6.601 billion on 03 January as compared to $6.369 billion on December 27, 2008.

Reserves held by the banks (other than SBP) also showed an increase of $111 million to $3.403 billion during the last week from $3.292 billion a week earlier.