Forex doubles to 9-month high at $8.73 bn.

Pakistan's foreign exchange reserves doubled, reaching a nine-month high of $8.73 billion, thanks to new debt-financing inflows from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and friendly countries like Saudi Arabia and UAE. This influx of funds has improved the country's import capacity to two months, a significant improvement from the critically low one-month level it was at before the IMF awarded a new short-term loan programme worth $3 billion in late June 2023.

The rupee-dollar exchange rate spread between the interbank and open markets has also narrowed down close to the IMF directed level...