Rupee reaches 219.71 in interbank market against dollar.
PKR depreciates by 0.37% (Rs0.82) on day-on-day basis.
Dollar also strengthens in open market, closes at 226.20.
KARACHI: The Pakistani rupee Tuesday depreciated against the US dollar for the fifth straight session after an increased demand for the greenback from the importers.
The local unit depreciated by 0.37% (Rs0.82) on a day-on-day basis to reach 219.71 in the interbank market, according to the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP), down in value from the previous close of 218.89.
The dollar also strengthened in the open market as the rupee lost 0.50 to close at 226.20.
Analysts have said that the local unit will remain rangebound in the ongoing week, depending on the demand for greenback by importers as the central bank has started to clear pending letters of credit.
Talking to Geo.tv, economist and former adviser to the federal ministry of finance Dr Khaqan Hassan Najeeb the movement of a currency in a market-based exchange rate can be largely influenced by three factors — market sentiment, speculation and fundamentals.
“The rather disorderly movement that was seen in the rupee earlier all the way to 240 was partly sentiment and partly speculation,” the economist said.
With the element of speculation slowing and the liquidation of export receipts held abroad, the rupee saw a correction to nearly Rs 218, Khaqan said.
“The exchange rate movement is likely to be more fundamentally driven dependent on dollar inflows and the foreign exchange reserves held by the state bank of Pakistan,” he said.
“At the same time managing the current account deficit is an important influence in the market-based exchange rate movement for coming months,” Khaqan said.
The central bank’s foreign exchange reserves decreased by $303 million to $7.596 billion as of October 7 due to external debt repayments.
The central bank’s reserves are enough to cover hardly one month’s worth of imports.
The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) will release its monetary policy on Monday.
The Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) of the SBP will convene on the first day of the following week to make decisions on monetary policy.
The Monetary Policy decision will be announced by Governor SBP Jameel Ahmad at a news conference on the same day after the MPC meeting, according to an official release.
In December, the central bank reduced policy rates by 200 basis points (bps) to 13 percent.
“In November 2024, headline inflation fell to 4.9 percent year on year, meeting the MPC’s estimates. This decrease was mostly caused by the ongoing decline in food inflation and the phasing out of the impact of the gas tariff increase in November 2023,” SBP stated in an official release.
“However, the Committee noted that core inflation, at 9.7 percent, is proving to be sticky, while consumer and business inflation expectations remain volatile.” To that end, the Committee restated its previous assessment that inflation may remain volatile in the short term before stabilizing within the target range.
“At the same time, growth prospects have slightly improved, as evidenced by a recent increase in high-frequency indicators of economic activity.” Overall, the Committee concluded that its approach of gradual policy rate decreases is keeping inflationary and external account pressures under control while promoting long-term economic growth.
During his attendance at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb has met with officials of organisations and leaders of many nations. Bangladesh’s Chief Advisor, Muhammad Younas, met with Mohammad Aurangzeb. On the fringes of the World Economic Forum’s Annual Meeting 2025 Opening Banquet, there was an informal meeting. Additionally, the Finance Minister met with Anwar Ibrahim, the Prime Minister of Malaysia. Both leaders discussed economic cooperation and bilateral ties. Muhammad Aurangzeb also had a meeting with Dp World’s Rizwan Soomro and Yuvraj Narayan. They talked about how to strengthen Pakistan’s logistics and infrastructure systems to support trade. “The Pakistani government is committed to advancing joint projects and values partnerships in both business-to-business and business-to-government cooperation,” the finance minister added.