KARACHI
Pakistani rupee improved against the US dollar in the inter-bank market for the third straight session on Thursday and improved by 22 paisas (+0.08 percent).
The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) said in a tweet that the rupee opened at 285.39 against the dollar in the interbank market and closed at 285.17.
Overall, the rupee improved by Rs1.66 during the previous two weeks. Similarly, the rupee improved by Rs3.12 during the current fiscal year 2023-24. However, the rupee depreciated by Rs54.33 in the current year.
The rupee shed Rs3.69 against the US dollar in November after gaining 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 shed Re1 against the greenback in the open market. The rupee was quoted in the range of 284-287 a dollar as compared to 283-286 in the previous session.
During the last week, the PKR gained Rs3 for both buying and selling against the USD in the open market.
The government and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) reached a staff-level agreement in the recent past that paved the way for Pakistan to receive $700 as part of the stand-by agreement. The IMF funds to be issued are a second tranche of the nine-month bailout package and are subject to approval from the IMF’s executive board, the lender said in a statement. This will bring total disbursements under the $3 billion package, approved in July, to almost $1.9 billion. The gap between rates in the inter-bank and open markets is required to be less than 1.25 percent under one of the structural benchmarks set by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which at present is fully met.
In a related development, the SBP reported a steep decline of $217 million in its foreign exchange reserves to $7.18 billion due to debt repayments during the week ended on November 17, which is less than three months of imports. The total liquid foreign reserves held by the country stood at $12.3 billion while the holdings of the commercial banks were $5.12 billion during the week.
On the other hand, the current account deficit for October 2023 widened significantly by 60.87 percent month-on-month 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 month-on-month 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 year-on-year as it stood at $2.25 billion in October 2022.
