Weekly Economic Roundup

July 24, 2022 (MLN): The latest weekly roundup covers the latest economic and financial data releases over the past week to keep an eye on next week’s trends.

• Workers' remittances rose to a record $31.2bn in FY22, up by 6% YoY compared to FY21. In the month of June’22, remittances clocked in at $2.8bn, marking an increase of 18% compared to the previous month and 2% compared to June’21.
• Total power generation in the country increased by 10% YoY to 143,193 GWh in FY22 at a cost of Rs9.34 per unit, compared to 130,223 GWh in FY21 at the cost of Rs4.83/KWh.
• The Banking sector spread for June 2022 narrowed down by 91 basis points (bps) over the month which brings its latest value to 4.41% as compared to the prior month's spread of 4.61%.
• The Weekly Sensitive Price Indicator (SPI) for the Combined Group decreased by 0.22% during the week ended Jul 21, 2022, while the SPI increased by 32.78% compared to the corresponding period from last year.
• Automobile financing in Pakistan increased by 17% YoY in June 2022 to a record high at Rs367 billion, compared to Rs308bn in the same month last year, the latest data issued by SBP showed.
• Pakistan’s Large Scale Manufacturing Industries (LSMI) production increased by 21.4% YoY during May 2022 when compared with May’21.
• The inflow of foreign direct investment (FDI) into Pakistan during FY22 stood at $1.87 billion against the inflow of $1.82bn recorded in FY21, up by 3% YoY.
• The total liquid foreign exchange reserves held by the country dropped by $369 million or 2.4% WoW to stand at $15.24 billion during the week ended on July 15, 2022, compared to $15.61bn in the previous week, weekly data released by the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) showed.
• The exports to Italy and remittances to Pakistan crossed $2 billion, recording the highest ever annual growth where both the sectors observed the highest growth as compared to any other potential market.
• Pakistan’s textile exports reached a record high of $19.3 billion in FY22, up by 25.5% YoY, compared to $15.4bn in FY21, the latest data released by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) showed.
• The import bill of oil was recorded at $3.69 billion in June 2022, 2.46x higher than June 2021, touching a historic high of $23.31bn, up by 2x YoY FY22 amid a 71% YoY jump in Arab Light prices along with a 19% YoY volumetric growth, data released by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) showed.
• Pakistan stock market this week lost nearly 1,998 points or down by 4.75% to settle at the 40,077 level.
• The Pakistani rupee (PKR) plunged by 17.4 rupees against the US dollar in five consecutive sessions to settle the week’s trade at PKR 228.37 per USD.

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