Web Desk (LTN NEWS): Tuesday was the second day in a row that the rupee lost value, as it fell to Rs217.66 per dollar on the interbank market.
The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) says that the value of the local currency went down by Re1 or 0.46 percent.
https://twitter.com/StateBank Pak/status/1562030233859117057
Saad bin Naseer, the director of a website for financial data and analytics called Mettis Global, said that the rupee would stay weak until the country got the next installment of its loan from the International Monetary Fund.
He also pointed out that exports were going down and that the ban on importing non-essential and luxury goods had been lifted. Because of this, the rupee has started to get weaker again.
He said that there weren’t enough greenbacks on the open market, and you couldn’t get one even for Rs225. “There’s more fear. The State Bank will have to step in and stop commercial banks from buying dollars at high rates,” he said.
Zafar Paracha, who is the General Secretary of the Exchange Companies Association of Pakistan (Ecap), agreed with what Naseer said. He said that the rupee had started to get weaker again because exports and money sent home were going down.
He also said that dollars were being taken to Afghanistan without being found.
Paracha asked for tighter border controls to stop smuggling and for the SBP to keep a closer eye on commercial banks. “This is the only way to raise the value of the rupee,” he said.
On July 28, the local currency hit a new record low of Rs239.94. It then got better for 11 straight sessions, ending on August 16 at Rs213.90.
Rupee started going down again from August 17
The Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) showed last week that exports of non-textile products fell by 11% in the first month of the current fiscal year, from $868 million in the same month last year to $773 million. This was because demand was down.
On August 18, Finance Minister Miftah Ismail said that the government would no longer stop people from bringing in non-essential and luxury items.
