KARACHI: The country witnessed a new record level of foreign exchange reserves on Thursday as the State Bank put the total reserves reaching an all time high.

According to information available from the State Bank the country’s reserves rose to $16.767 billion. This was higher than the previous record level of October 2007, when the reserves touched $16.45 billion.

However, some analysts pointed out that the new record reserves contain most of the borrowed money, while the reserves of 2007 were purely net cash of the country.

The reserves went higher since the country received $470 million from the Asian Development Bank, $95 million from World Bank and $185 million as grant from the United States at the end of last month.

Further break-up of the reserves showed that the reserves of the State Bank rose to $12.951 billion, while the scheduled banks’ reserves were up to $3.816 billion.

The country will have to pay back the loans by next couple of years, especially the emergency loans of $11.3 billion from IMF.

The high foreign exchange reserves would help stabilise the exchange rate and strengthen the local currency. The local currency has been depreciating against the major international currencies, particularly against the dollar.