Pakistani Rupee (PKR) joined back its course of devaluation as the currency could not hold the ground in today’s interbank session and closed the trade at Rs167.23 per USD, depreciating by 32 paisa.
On Friday, the local unit had closed at PKR166.91 against the greenback.
This continuous pressure on PKR is mainly due to the spillover effect of Afghanistan’s ongoing situation. Since it was solely dependent on foreign aid, the discontinuation of funds has pushed the dollar demand in Afghanistan which in turn disturbed Pakistan’s interbank market.
Under these circumstances, SBP will have to check, monitor Open Market Rate and narrow down the gap. Otherwise, the one-sided journey of PKR will remain pain in the neck, Asad Rizvi, the Former Treasury Head at Chase Manhattan said.
The rupee traded within a very narrow range of 52 paisa per USD showing an intraday high bid of 167.22 and an intraday Low offer of 166.75.
Within the Open Market, PKR was traded at 166.70/168.25 per USD.
According to the data compiled by Mettis Global, the rupee has depreciated by 5.79% or PKR 9.68 in the fiscal year-to-date against USD. Similarly, the home unit has weakened by 4.42% or PKR 7.39 in CY21 with the month-to-date (MTD) position showing a decline of 3.53%.
Meanwhile, the currency lost 61 paisa to the Pound Sterling as the day’s closing quote stood at PKR 231.49 per GBP, while the previous session closed at PKR 230.88 per GBP.
Similarly, PKR’s value weakened by 26 paisa against EUR which closed at PKR 198.4 at the interbank today.
On another note, within the money market, the overnight repo rate towards the close of the session was 7.05/7.10 per cent, whereas the 1-week rate was 7.05/7.15 per cent.
This story was originally published in Mettis Global.
