KARACHI
Pakistani rupee inched down against the US dollar for the second straight session in the inter-bank market on Friday and depreciated by 10 paisas (-0.04 percent).
The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) said that the rupee opened at 285.27 against the dollar in the interbank market and closed at 285.37.
Overall, the rupee improved by Rs1.13 this week and 53 paisas last week. Similarly, the rupee improved by Rs1.79 during the current fiscal year 2023-24. However, the rupee depreciated by Rs54.53 in the current year.
The rupee gained Rs6.26 (+2.23 percent) against the greenback in the month of October. The currency surged more than 6 percent in September to become the top performer in the world.
However, the local unit gained one rupee against the greenback in the open market. The rupee was quoted in the range of 283-286 a dollar as compared to 284-287 in the previous session. The rupee has recovered by Rs42.5 against the dollar in the last 56 sessions in the open market. During this week, the PKR gained Rs3 for both buying and selling against the USD.
The gap between rates in the inter-bank and open markets is required to be less than 1.25% under one of the structural benchmarks set by the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The South Asian nation is operating under a caretaker government after a $3 billion IMF loan programme was approved in July to avert a sovereign debt default.
Last week, the IMF staff and Pakistani authorities reached a staff-level agreement on the first review of the IMF Stand-By Arrangement (SBA) program. This outcome was critical, given that in spite of the disbursement of pledged assistance by multilateral and bilateral partners, Pakistan’s foreign exchange reserves remain disturbingly low at $7.4 billion on 10 November 2023, which is less than three months of imports.
In a related development, the current account deficit for October 2023 widened significantly by 60.87 percent MoM to stand at $74 million compared to the deficit of $46 million in September 2023, the latest data issued by the SBP revealed. Similarly, the workers’ remittances improved by 11.55 percent MoM to $2.46 billion in October as compared to $2.21 billion in the preceding month, while on a yearly basis, the remittances went up by 9.56 percent YoY as it stood at $2.25 billion in October 2022.
