KARACHI (November 14 2002) : Pakistan's foreign exchange reserves have further improved by 95 million dollars in a week and main increase was in the coffer of the State Bank.
The country's reserves rose to 8.637 billion dollars from 8.542 billion dollars a week earlier. The State Bank registered an increase of 93 million dollars to push the total at 6.458 billion dollars.
However, the growth in the reserves of the commercial banks slightly increased by only three million dollars to make their total as 2.180 billion dollars from 2.177 billion dollars a week earlier.
The increase in reserves was mainly due to speedy remittances from the overseas Pakistanis who sent triple time more money in first quarter of this fiscal year compared to last year.
The overseas remittances have shown an increase of 251 percent in the first quarter of the on going fiscal year pushing the total remittances to above 926 million dollars.
Due to increasing foreign exchange reserves, the greenback has lost its speculative value and gradually losing its weight against the Pak rupee both in inter-bank and open market.
