KARACHI
Snapping a two-day winning streak, Pakistani rupee weakened against the US dollar by 19 paisas (-0.07 percent) in the interbank market on Monday.
The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) said in a tweet that the rupee opened at 286.45 against the dollar in the interbank market and closed at 286.64. During the previous two sessions, the rupee strengthened against the US dollar by Rs2.07. However, in the preceding eight sessions, the local unit weakened by Rs12.06 in the interbank market.
Similarly, the local unit depreciated against the greenback in the open market by Re1 (-0.34 percent). The rupee was quoted in the range of 289-292 against the dollar in the open market as compared to 288-291 a session earlier. In the black market/Hundi, the dollar remained unchanged at Rs310.
During the current fiscal year 2023-24, Pakistani rupee has shed Rs0.65 against the US dollar in the interbank market, while it plummeted by Rs59.21 against the greenback in the current year.
Earlier, the Pakistani rupee made minor gains against the US dollar last week, rising by 0.13 percent in the interbank market and 1.02 percent in open market, while its rate remained unchanged in the black market/ Hundi.
The rupee regained some lost ground after Beijing rolled over a $2.4 billion loan to Islamabad for a period of two years, a boost to the latter’s foreign reserves on the back of an IMF deal which helped it avert a default. “Chinese Exim bank rolled over principal amounts totalling $2.4 bln which are due in next 2 fiscal years,” Finance Minister Ishaq Dar said in a post on messaging platform X, formerly known as Twitter. Moreover, Islamabad expects a generous inflow of $600 million from a consortium of two major Chinese banks in the coming days.
Meanwhile, the foreign exchange reserves held by the SBP stood at $8.186 billion in the week ending July 21. The total liquid foreign reserves held by the country stood at $13.534 billion including $5.348 billion held by the commercial banks.
The SBP reserves surged to the highest level in nine months, thanks to financial support from the bilateral and multilateral partners.
In a related move, the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) of the SBP in its meeting on Monday decided to keep the policy rate unchanged at 22 percent. The decision came in line with the market expectations wherein most of market participants were in consensus on the rate pause.
