The rupee continued to extend gains against the dollar on Wednesday, rising by approximately Rs2 in the interbank market in the morning session.<\/p>\n
According to the Forex Association of Pakistan (FAP), the local currency gained Rs2.04 \u2014 an appreciation of 0.9 per cent \u2014 against yesterday\u2019s close of Rs225.64, with the dollar\u2019s value reducing to Rs223.60 by 12:20pm.<\/p>\n
The PKR has recovered Rs14.07 or 5.87pc against the greenback during the last eight sessions.<\/p>\n
Analysts have attributed the strengthening of the rupee primarily to a reduction in the country\u2019s import bill in September and expectations that the new finance minister, Ishaq Dar, would take measures to stabilise the current rate.<\/p>\n
\u201cSeptember\u2019s lower imports are helping the PKR. Moreover, there is speculation that the new finance minister may take steps to stabilise the local currency,\u201d Mohammed Sohail, chief executive officer of brokerage house Topline Securities, told Dawn.com.<\/p>\n
Similarly, Exchange Companies Association of Pakistan (Ecap) General Secretary Zafar Paracha also highlighted the shrinking of the import bill last month and reduction in trade deficit by 20pc on a monthly basis as two of the factors behind the rupee\u2019s upward momentum.<\/p>\n
\u201cInflation is also declining, increasing hopes of no further stringent measures in the monetary policy,\u201d he said, adding that the rupee was expected to make further gains in the coming days due to these factors.<\/p>\n
Paracha also linked the rupee\u2019s appreciation to \u201cstrict measures\u201d taken by the government to strengthen it.<\/p>\n
Show-cause notices had been issued to ABL, NBP and Standard Chartered, he informed the panel, adding that the rest of the banks would be investigated in the next phase.<\/p>\n
Earlier, Dawn reported that banks had doubled their buying of the US currency and were sending it abroad via credit cards while the government grappled to control greenback outflows.<\/p>\n
Subsequently, in a media talk last week, Dar said nobody would be allowed to play with the exchange rate.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is not the right place where the rupee stands at present,\u201d he had said, adding that he knew some speculators were involved in this game that they should stop forthwith.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The rupee continued to extend gains against the dollar on Wednesday, rising by approximately Rs2 in the interbank market in the morning session. According to the Forex Association of Pakistan (FAP), the local currency gained Rs2.04 \u2014 an appreciation of 0.9 per cent \u2014 against yesterday\u2019s close of Rs225.64, with the dollar\u2019s value reducing to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":287552,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-287551","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business"},"yoast_head":"\n