Country’s Foreign Exchange Reserves Increase To $20b, Senate Told

Minister for Industries Hammad Azhar says that the State Bank of Pakistan had for exchange reserves of 12 to 13 billion dollars. He stated that the reserves increased due to improvement in exports and remittances.

LAHORE: (UrduPoint/UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News-Jan 22^nd, 2021) Minister for Industries Hammad Azhar on Friday told the Senate that the country’s foreign exchange reserves increased to about twenty billion dollars.

Hammad Azhar said that the State Bank of Pakistan had for exchange reserves of 12 to 13 billion dollars. He stated that the reserves increased due to improvement in exports and remittances.

He expressed these views during question hour during Senate session on Friday (today).

The session started at the parliament house in Islamabad today (Friday) with Chairman Sadiq Sanjrani in the chair.

Hammad Azhar said that the Minister for Industries had also been a record debt servicing during the tenure of the present government.

He said they were paying back ten billion Dollars annually.

Hammad Azhar said the current account had shown a surplus of 1.6 billion dollars during the first five months of current financial year against a deficit of 1.7 billion dollars in the corresponding period last year.

The Minister for Industries said that special economic zones will be constructed under the mega China Pakistan Economic Corridor project. He said construction work on three SEZs has been expedited. He said projects worth 1.7 billion dollars are in the phase of implementation in Gwadar under the CPEC. He said two projects have already been completed while seven projects worth 1.2 billion dollars projects are in the execution phase.