JEDDAH — Saudi Arabia's general reserves rose by SR52 million in March 2017 to reach SR641.8 billion, local daily Al-Madina reported on Tuesday quoting the monthly report of the Saudi Arabian Monetary Authority (SAMA). The report said the current account of the state dropped by SR4 billion in the same month to stand at SR38.5 billion. Banks reduced their investments in treasury bonds by SR202 million in March to stand at SR178.7 billion. The report said SAMA's foreign assets declined by SR28.8 billion, registering its lowest level in five years. According to SAMA, the local and foreign debt tools in 2016 reached SR200.1 billion at a time the Finance Ministry announced that it would resume its local bonds sometime this year. The report said the foreign investments of the commercial Saudi banks reached SR123.4 billion by the end of March compared to SR159.6 billion at the same time last year registering a decrease of SR36.2 billion with a ratio of 23 percent. The foreign debts of the banks by the end of March were SR81.4 billion compared to SR81,3 billion in the same period in 2016 with a slight growth of SR82 million representing 0.01 percent. The report said the foreign assets of the commercial banks operating in the Kingdom by the end of March stood at SR148.5 billion compared to SR200.4 billion in 2016 with a decrease of about 26 percent. It said the value of the sales through the use of ATMs and credit cards from malls, shopping centers, pharmacies and others rose by about six percent to reach SR16.3 billion compared to SR15.4 billion last year. The report said these sales were done through 55 million operations via 295,000 ATM machines. The withdrawals from 18,000 ATM machines dropped by about four percent to stand at SR63.4 billion.
