By By Khalid Mustafa
With injection of $500 million in deposits of the State Bank of Pakistan, the foreign exchanges reserves would swell to $10.2 billion, a senior official in the ministry of finance told The News. Syed Wasim, Spokesman of State Bank of Pakistan, the country earlier received the same amount of $500 million in June 2008 meaning by that Beijing has provided sigh of relief by giving $1 billion from June 2008 till now for purely strengthening the foreign reserves of the country.
To a question, he said the central bank some time in the middle of the Musharraf’s regime has also received $500 million in support of reserves and paid back some of the principle amount. Right now, after paying back some of the amount to China, the bank possesses Chinese relief of $1.3 billion. The official said the SBP right now retains $10.2 billion out of which commercial banks have $3.3 billion. The official said the SBP received $3.1 billion from the International Monetary Fund so far out of its bailout package of $7.6 billion.
The official said it is Beijing, which proved that Pak-China friendship is stronger than Himalayas’ peaks.