March 21, 2021 (MLN): The financial highlights of the country are brought to light with the economic and financial data releases over the course of the week.

• The Weekly Sensitive Price Indicator (SPI) for the Combined Group decreased by 0.19% during the week ended Mar 18, 2021 while the SPI increased by 13.21% compared to the corresponding period from last year.
• The Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) of the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) in its meeting held on March 19, 2021 in Karachi, has decided to maintain the Policy Rate at 7 percent.
• Pakistan's Forex Reserves increased by USD 1.20 Million or 0.01% and the total liquid foreign reserves held by the country stood at USD 20,159.10 Million on Mar 12, 2021.
• The Finance Committee of Export Development Fund (FC-EDF) approved Rs. 950 million for up-gradation of PPTF. The committee also approved Rs. 8.9 billion for EDF Financial year 2021-22 based on EDS collection expected during the current financial year.
• Pakistan's outstanding debts as of February 28, 2021 stand at a colossal amount of Rs.23.61 trillion whereas total debt at the end of the prior month was Rs.23.3 trillion, meaning that around Rs.312.34 billion were additionally borrowed during this month alone.
• Pakistan witnessed Foreign Direct Investments (FDI) of $155 million during the month of February 2021 i.e. around 20% lower as compared to the net inflows of $192.7 million received in January 2021.
• The country attracted $1.3 billion of net FDI during July-Feb FY21, with China, Netherlands and Hongkong appeared as the top three investors in Pakistan with net FDI of $494 million, $117.8 million, and $106.3 million respectively.
• Pak Rupee's Real Effective Exchange Rate Index (REER) decreased by 1.05 percent in January 2021 to a provisional value of 95.32 from a provisional value of 96.33 in December 2020.
• The total exports from Pakistan during February 2021 amounted to Rs. 329,116 million (provisional) as against Rs. 343,612 million (provisional) in January 2021 and Rs. 329,588 million during February 2020 showing a decrease of 4.22% over January 2021 and of 0.14% over February 2020.
• Imports into Pakistan during February 2021 amounted to Rs. 735,609 million (provisional) as against Rs. 771,939 million (provisional) in January 2021 and Rs. 642,896 million during February 2020 showing a decrease of 4.71% over January 2021 but an increase of 14.42% over February 2020.
• The import bill of the Machinery group surged by around 26.65% YoY and 0.70% MoM to stand at $926 million in the month of February 2021.
• Pakistan’s textile exports during the month of February 2021, stood at $1.23 billion, showing a decline of 6.75% and 3.12% when compared with January 2021 and February 2020 respectively.
• The exports of the food group witnessed a decline of 5.85% YoY to $2.85 billion during eight months of the current fiscal year. While, imports of the food group into the country were recorded at $5.34 billion, up by 50.3% YoY in 8MFY21.
• Cement exports during the month of February 2021 declined by 5.9% MoM and 17.93% YoY to USD 19.52 million compared to USD 20.75 million in the previous month and USD 23.79 million in Feb’20, the latest data released by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics revealed.
• The overall output of LSMI increased by 7.85% for July-January 2020-21 compared to July-January 2019-20.
• The net purchase of securities for the week ended March 05, 2021 clocked in at Rs.6.87 billion, i.e. around Rs.3.6 billion higher than last week's numbers.
• The government of Pakistan has acquired an additional debt of Rs.63.38 billion during the week ended March 05, 2021, which brings its total net borrowing for ongoing fiscal year 2021 to Rs.364.65 billion. As of prior week, the government had borrowed a net sum of Rs.301.27 billion.
• The non-government sector has retired a net sum of Rs.17.55 billion during the week ended March 05, 2021, which brings the cumulative net borrowing for ongoing fiscal year FY2021 to Rs.361.44 billion. The net borrowing as of the prior week was recorded at Rs.378.99 billion.
• The Government has decided that the prices of Petrol and High-Speed Diesel will remain unchanged. Finance Division said no Petroleum Levy is being charged on Kerosene and Light Diesel and its prices have been marginally increased by 3.42 rupees per litre and 2.19 rupees per litre respectively due to significant rise in the international prices of Petroleum Products.
• The Roshan Digital Account (RDA) has crossed 100,000 accounts and deposits have reached $671 million, with half of these coming in the last 8 weeks alone, the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) said in a tweet on Friday.
• The National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (NEPRA) has allowed K-Electric to increase electricity prices up to Rs1.97 per unit for three quarters.

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