Rupee touches one-month high against dollar
Photo: file
Pakistani currency maintained its uptrend for the third consecutive working day on Friday and recovered to around Rs260 to a dollar in the inter-bank market.
The domestic currency rose by 0.36%, or Rs0.94, to a one-month high at Rs259.99 against the greenback, according to the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP).
The latest gains came after the central bank reported that the country’s foreign exchange reserves had improved for the second consecutive week. They went up by $66 million last week to a four-week high at $3.26 billion.
The rupee also got support from news that China would lend $700 million to Pakistan in the current week. In the evening after the closure of inter-bank market, Finance Minister Ishaq Dar announced that Pakistan had received $700 million.
Pak-Kuwait Investment Company Head of Research Samiullah Tariq said that the rupee may settle somewhere between Rs255 and Rs260 to a dollar in the short run.
Later, the disbursement of International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) loan tranche and receipt of funds from other multilateral and bilateral creditors will provide direction for the rupee.
He stated that non-debt foreign currency inflows had grown more than the outflows in recent times after exporters brought their proceeds earlier withheld overseas in anticipation of a better rupee-dollar exchange rate.
Published in The Express Tribune, February 25th, 2023.
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