Currency: Rupee unchanged against dollar

KARACHI: The rupee ended at 86.60/65 to the dollar, unchanged from Monday’s close, as dollar inflows matched its demand. “There were some import payments today, but the market was even and inflows matched the outflows,” said a dealer at a foreign bank. The rupee fell to a record low of 86.83 this month but dealers said a further slide in the local unit is likely to be prevented by a rise in remittances from overseas Pakistanis. According to official data, remittances rose 38.57 percent to $1.1 billion in the first month of 2011/12 fiscal year, compared with $791.18 million in the same period last year. In the money market, overnight rates ended at 13.0 percent, little changed from the previous day.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 17^th, 2011.