The Pakistani Rupee (PKR) maintained its position from yesterday against the US Dollar (USD), gaining less than a paisa in the interbank currency market today.
This week’s trajectory for the PKR has been of a loss of 45 paisas on Monday, a gain of 14 paisas on Tuesday, a loss of 16 paisas on Wednesday, another loss of eight paisas on Thursday, and a gain of 0.6 paisa on Friday.
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Today (13 August), the PKR traded between Rs. 163.85 to the USD and Rs. 164.50 to the USD before closing at Rs. 164.0022 to the USD, as compared to yesterday’s (12 August) closing at Rs. 164.0090 to the USD.
The PKR lost 0.34 percent (Rs. 0.55) to the USD on a WTD basis within the last week. This deterioration is steeper at 0.97 percent (Rs. 1.57) on a month-to-date basis, while the erosion for the local unit is even stronger at 2.61 percent (Rs. 4.17) against the greenback on a year-to-date basis.
Asad Rizvi, the former Treasury Head at the Chase Manhattan Bank, said earlier in the day, “Fall in SBP’s [foreign exchange] reserves to $17.622 million is indicative of the fact that why PKR is under pressure”.
He added, “As long as wider trade gap persists, deficit looms and basics are not addressed, the pain will not subside. It’s the faster pace of import that hurts”.
The local unit also posted blanket gains against the other major currencies in the interbank currency market today. It gained 5.7 paisas against the Euro, improved notably by Rs. 1.04 against the Pound Sterling (GBP), gained 37 paisas against the Australian Dollar (AUD), and improved by five paisas against the Canadian Dollar (CAD).
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It also improved against both the UAE Dirham (UAE) and the Saudi Riyal (SAR) today but the movement was negligible with an improvement of one-tenth of a paisa.
